Advent of the Chosen
by AKAAkira
Summary: Xarah didn't exist until she had been dropped into the life of Cyntia and Kaven. So if *they* need her, why are *they* trying to take her away from them? Plus, Kaven realizes for the first time that his smart mind isn't always a blessing.
1. Unique Nevermore

**Summary**: Xarah didn't exist until she had been dropped into the life of Cyntia and Kaven. So if *they* need her, why are *they* trying to take her away from them? Plus, Kaven realizes for the first time that his smart mind isn't always a blessing.

_**A/N This is my NaNoWriMo fic. And I honestly can't believe I actually did it. Me, who prefers reading action above all others, actually delved into a mass block of attempted character exploration.**_

_**This **_**is**_** a G1 fic. Originally I planned to do this as a companion to Mabinogiworld's Wiki, as that one was more focused on the plot and I wanted more focus on character and themes. Having said that, though, I'm too lazy right now to insert references here where the plot deviates from the actual game's scenario.**_

_**Still, I **_**am**_** looking over each chapter once and making it easier on the eyes. The middle of this chapter used to be a massive wall of text, which was unfortunately influenced by this site making paragraphs shorter and me actually wanting a paragraph to look like a paragraph and not a one-liner. I probably overdid it, so I broke most down.**_

**_Anything else...nothing comes to mind. Enjoy the first chapter._**

**Disclaimer:** **Mabinogi belongs to Nexon and devCAT. I own absolutely nothing in relation to it, except for the characters I thought up.**

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><p>Black. It's all black.<p>

Why is it all black?

All black means emptiness. All black means nothingness. All black means an eternal stretch of a neverending void that ceases to have any meaning barely a metre down which couldn't exactly be a metre because there was nothing to measure or compare it with and what is a metre anyways?

She's scared. She doesn't know what's going on. She's utterly helpless.

What is she? What was she? What will she be? None of that matters, in this enormous, expanding, enveloping fog of black.

Why is she here? What's going on? Why must it torture her so?

Why _is_ it torturing her so?

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Wh –?

And the next thing she knows, it's all white.

White. It's all white.

Why is it all white?

All white means emptiness. All white means nothingness. All white means an eternal stretch of a neverending void that ceases to have any meaning barely a yard down which couldn't exactly be a yard because there was nothing to measure or compare it with and what is a yard anyways?

She's scared. She doesn't know what's going on. She's utterly helpless.

What is she? What was she? What will she be? None of that matters, in this enormous, expanding, enveloping fog of white.

Why is she here? What's going on? Why must it torture her so?

Why _is_ it torturing her so?

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

_Why?_

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><p><strong>Chapter One – <strong>

_Unique Nevermore_

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><p>"Hello?"<p>

In that instant, she isn't scared anymore. She spins around immediately, her red hair nearly whipping her in the face as a tentative smile forms on her lips.

First she sees black. Then she sees white. And then she realizes she's seeing both black and white. She loves it, and her smile grows wider.

"H-hello," she replies timidly, but then becomes quiet, afraid this other, white-haired, black-dressed girl before her will fade back into whiteness if she spoke further.

The other girl has an odd twist on her cheeks, mouth and eyes, and it takes the little girl a moment to categorize it as an expression of relief. Only upon seeing this does the little girl become encouraged once more. "P-pleased to meet you." She does a little formal curtsy, spreading her imaginary skirt, bowing her head and shifting her right foot a little behind her left one, before realizing she has no idea what any of the parts she's trying to move or any of the actions she is performing are called. The other girl only giggles, but it's somehow a cute, warm giggle that reminds the little girl of a small creature with whiskers, triangular ears, graceful tail and a beautifully arched back she feels she had cuddled with even though she has absolutely no memories of it. Her confidence bounces back again. "My name is…"

But there she has to stop, partly because she has little idea what in the world a name is, but more importantly she has no idea what _her_ name is. She feels helpless yet again, and suddenly a tidal wave of fear sweeps over her as she realizes she may have lost the only connection she might have with the girl she just met. As she gazes at the other girl desperately her sight fogs over and her feeling only skyrockets, afraid that her earlier suspicions are true and this other girl really _will_ fade into the whiteness. A quick rub of her eyes, however, dissipates this moist fog, giving her relief for a tiny moment.

The other girl chooses this moment to speak. "Xarah," she says kindly, and the little girl immediately brightens. "Your name is Xarah, with an X. It's a unique name, little one. Be proud…"

But then she breaks off, and it takes Xarah another moment to realize the fog had attacked her eyes once again. She brings her hands back to her eyes, rubbing it quickly, before gazing sullenly back to the other girl. "No it's not."

"I'm sorry?" Xarah remains silent, so the other girl cautiously speaks again. "What is it not?"

"U-u-u-" She stutters a few more times before giving up. "There are other names like it."

The other girl apparently has nothing to say to this, but when she gives another smile, albeit an apologetic one this time, Xarah's confidence zooms back like a yo-yo on tangled string. "It's nice to meet you, Xarah. My name is Nao Mariota Pryderi. I watch over, and live in, the Soul Stream, which is this area that you just arrived in. You're probably wondering–"

Xarah already stopped listening at the word "which", instead running forward and hugging the girl fiercely around her black, smoothly textured dress. The other girl gasps slightly, and then proceeds to an "Umm…"

"I'm sorry," Xarah says clearly. She doesn't let go.

"It-it's quite all right," the girl manages back, "there's no need to be sorry. W-what _are_ you sorry for?"

Xarah pulls back, looking straight at the other girl's face with wide eyes. "You live here, right?"

"Y-yes. I do."

"All by yourself?"

"Yes…"

"You're brave, miss," the little girl says admiringly, but also with a hint of sympathy. "Everything is white." Xarah shudders. "It's not as pretty as your hair. You must be scared. I wish I could do something." The little girl's mood brightens. "I know! I can live here with you! We can build a house. We can have a big dragon. We can have a pretty prince. We can live happily ever after!" Xarah starts bouncing excitedly on her feet. "I can get the trees! Daddy showed me how. First, I need a lumber axe. Then –"

A hand sets down on her little head, and somehow Xarah immediately knows that the other girl is feeling melancholy. She looks up in confusion as Nao explains. "I'm sorry, little one. You can't live here with me. I'm needed here. You're needed somewhere else."

Xarah's shoulder slumps immediately. The fog from earlier viciously returns, and this time it seems to be threatening to overflow out of her sight. Her eyes drop down onto the floor, unfortunately reminding her of the white that surrounds her, and she concentrates on the border between the end of Nao's long dress and the floor instead. "Why?" she whimpers. "Don't you like me? What did I do wrong?"

The arms that wrap around her still feel too sad for Xarah's liking. Yet, they also seem to give off a sense of strong support as well. "No, little one. This has to happen because you are special."

"I don't want to be special. I don't want you to leave."

"I'm sorry. I have to. But let me tell you something. You're going to make lots of friends, Xarah. All of them will care deeply for you. The Goddess Morrighan promises you."

At this point, Xarah's smile had already returned. "F-friends?" she asks shyly. "Will they be…just like me?"

"Not exactly, Xarah. Your friends will be different from you. But isn't every person different from one another? What they can be, no, what they _will_ be –" and Nao's arms reassuring hugs her tighter as she says this – "is loving. They will take care of you. They will be your newest, dearest family. They will love you with all their hearts."

The prospect of new friends, and lots of them, makes Xarah woozy enough for her to not notice the other girl stepping back, and gesture something that she didn't quite catch. The fear of whiteness rears again, but the new weapon, the promise given to her by a Goddess, rages in her mind and chases her enemies away. She has just enough time to call, "But what about you?"

The problem is the fact that Nao already disappeared by the time she started calling out. She likely did not hear. It occurs to Xarah that maybe it was a good idea to go to sleep. She did not know why, but it sounds good.

She closes her eyes and her body takes over, sending her mind over the brink into unconsciousness.

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><p>Blue. It's all blue.<p>

Why is it all blue?

All blue means emptiness. All blue means nothingness. All blue means an eternal –

"ALL RIGHT, WHO THE HELL DUMPED THE GIRL IN OUR CART!"

All blue did _not_ mean that. Not that it matters to Xarah, who is already scrambling out of the slightly smelly vegetable cart with a huge smile on her face. Her feet thump on the earth at the same time, and she takes a look around.

She does not recognize the scene, though for some reason the term "market fair" dominates over her mind as she observes her surroundings. Most of the stalls that attract her eyes are built the same, with large white sheets, blinding in the sun, draped over the skeleton of a rectangular prism, which in turn imprisons several small opened crates that are filled with anything from apples to cucumbers to coverless, dilapidated books. There's no colour on the sheets as far as her eyes can see, but the variety of products and the texture of the crates themselves instantly capture her eyes, and she decides that she likes how the stalls look.

Xarah adores the clothes around her, too. There's some that are ragged, looking like dull pieces of fabric that are barely held together by string and will alone. There's that funny bearded man with the bulging muscles only a way off, who is wearing a simple worn black vest that looked like it had seen the ups and downs, the good and bad, the successes and failures of the man. It seems to have been paid for its stubbornness by being repaired by a hand either miserably unskilled or uncharacteristically clumsy. He is talking animatedly to a couple standing in a stone pit who is watching the commotion around them nervously. Xarah notices they are wearing the finest garments the little girl had seen in a while, not including Nao's of course. However, this seemed to have put them into a precarious position – she giggles every time the lady crows like a mouse and withdraws like a squirrel every time someone only just misses brushing against her shiny dress, and the man is not looking like he is comfortable either.

Several kids barely older than she is are running around the stalls, playing, and some of them seem to have taken upon themselves to try to annoy the couple for no reason than to amuse themselves with it. One boy finally manages to sneak up to the lady without being seen, and soundly and grossly wipes his nose on the back of her flowing gown before fleeing the slap the woman furiously sends his way. They turn to a different game next, going to the various stalls around the town and trying to take the products from each stop, giggling every time their varyingly coloured robes only just manages to evade a quick tender's snatches. The kids call back something that sounded so mean Xarah instantly desires to join them. This want diminishes rather quickly when one of the boys are actually caught by an elderly-looking man in a green traditional-looking wear, and the man returns the boy to the various stalls, making him apologize and give back everything he took, although the boy doesn't seem terribly upset by his capture.

The spectacle as a whole is so wonderfully chaotic, so beautifully blended, that her eyes absorb the view around her greedily, far more enthusiastic than she was in that horrible, terrifying place Nao lives in.

That's when the noises finally set in and she winces at the cacophony of guttural sounds that reach her ears. She cannot identify any of them at first, but once she sees the source of each sound it clears away some of her confusion. The bartering voices of several shops at once immediately become bearable this way, and so do the calls of various tenders to attract customers. Next she recognizes the constant squeaks of a particularly old-looking stall, the clucks of the chickens somewhere to her left, the pounding of multitudes of feet against stone and dirt, and the proximate yelling of the girl who stands right in front of her. Now that this new, dark-haired girl has her attention, Xarah decides to listen in.

"– you mean you haven't seen that girl get in! You're supposed to be watching over the cart!"

Despite the loud, almost obnoxious sound the girl is making, Xarah decides that the girl's voice is actually quite nice. She can only imagine how much better it must sound when the girl actually spoke in her normal tone.

"I looked away for only a second!" This voice wasn't quite as nice, but Xarah decides she likes this one too. "How was I supposed –?"

"You weren't supposed to look away _at all_! When we pay you to look after our stuff, you're supposed to _keep your freaking eyes on it_!"

"But there was this lady –"

"Get this in your head! _You're_! _Not_! _Supposed_! _To_! _TAKE YOUR EYES OFF_!"

"We kinda did pay you actual gold beforehand, you know," a quieter voice interjected. "You're supposed to make good on that deal."

"Look, there was no harm done. No one actually stole your stuff –"

"OR SO YOU THINK! NO HARM DONE MY –" And then the sentence became suddenly mumbled as Xarah observes the quieter, brown-haired male clap a hand over the girl's mouth.

"Lemme finish this for Cyntia. Basically, you let up on your paid job. We could have been robbed, or vandalized, or, if this was Emain Macha, a lot worse. We don't pay people who breach an agreement. We also don't pay people who let children climb onto potentially risky structures. So we want a half-refund. Just be glad I'm not asking for damages."

"What damages?" the other man exasperatedly asks. "It's one thing if there _was_ a vandal, but this is –"

"Sir, you're making a scene. I hope we can get this over with quickly, because Duncan _might_ intervene otherwise. And who knows if he just might happen to notice the wooden thingamabob – what _is _it called, by the way? A fake bottom? Anyways, our honourable town elder might find that fake bottom in that crate you're sitting on, coincidentally of course, and I doubt he'll like what you're hiding underneath it."

Xarah only has to watch the man turn a funny hue of purple before she can observe no longer and bursts out laughing. At this, the black-haired girl turns to her and grins, the anger seeming to fade out of her lovely milk chocolate eyes. She brushes her hair over the shoulder of her emerald green, collared, and sleeveless tank top that seems to be attached to a dark red cargo skirt, and then Xarah notices all of the pockets on it are hand-sewn. The little girl drops her eye contact, still giggling, as the male waits until the man gives up money from his pocket to turn to Xarah, who is still clutching on the side of the cart she had jumped out from. She embarrassingly lets go, shuffling sideways and away from the cart nervously. The girl only grins wider, but the male develops a frown on his face, scratching at the side of his greyish pants just above where the knees are patched with white cloth.

"Hey there, li'l girl. Are you lost?" Before Xarah could even think of an answer to that the male's arm darts ahead, catching something that is a little behind her, though when she turns to look the hand and whatever it may have been holding had been withdrawn. Xarah simply continues turning, coming to a complete three hundred sixty degree spin before bursting out into laugher once more.

"Take care of her?" she hears a voice say incredulously, though even when she tries to listen she cannot concentrate her mind through her laugher enough.

"It's a joke, right?" The girl now has a frown on her face as well, and Xarah finally senses that they're talking about something serious. "Duncan won't stand for child neglect. But either way, the girl won't have somewhere to live, since he'll probably relieve her parents of their duties. Um, is that an owl drawing I see here?"

"Could be. But come on, Duncan doesn't have to know about this. Think of the extra equipment we could buy if, at the right market –"

"Kaven, no," the girl warns, and the tone is so full of warning it brings Xarah's only just wandering mind back to the conversation. "You let me take over for the day. I am _not_ going to spoil it by having you doing human trafficking."

"Cyn, think about it. This girl's, what, ten years old? Or maybe eleven, at best. We don't even know her, and besides, what can she possibly do back home?"

Both of them turn to look at Xarah, and sensing she finally has a safe chance to speak, she takes a moment to brave looking at the sky. The blue that greets her almost coldly drives fear into her heart again, and then she sees the several patches of clouds floating in from one direction. The blue and white makes a lovely view. Today is going to be a good day.

She turns back to the two people on the ground, and smiling as wide as she can, she greets them.

"Hello! I'm Xarah! Are you my new friends?"

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><p><strong><em>Virtual cookie to anyone who actually guesses Xarah's one fear right from just this chapter.<em>**


	2. Serene Days I

_**A/N On Mabinogiworld Forums, I said I'd update this daily...that kind of got screwed over. Took way longer than I thought to do the lookover-ing, especially this chapter that I ultimately split into two after the whole thing got way too long. The fight is now better constructed, I think.**_

_**Funnily enough, I made a full connection between this series and my other one, **_**End Dimensions**_**, with little pushing from my brain. Funny now that happens. Regardless that connection won't be explicitly mentioned here.**_

_**My birthday was last week...yay.**_

_**Around this time last year, I believe I was releasing the fifth or sixth chapter of **_**White Shadow**_**. Wow, time flies.**_

_**As always, enjoy.**_

**Disclaimer:** **Mabinogi belongs to Nexon and devCAT. I own absolutely nothing in relation to it, except for the characters I thought up.**

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><p>The first thing Kaven hears upon waking up is scratchy-sounding flutters, presumably because of the crispy leaves outside, signalling the start of the fall season.<p>

The second thing Kaven hears upon waking up is a slight giggle so quiet, he has to pause for a moment to think whether he actually heard it or not.

And then Kaven gets the breath knocked out of him when Sarah lands, painfully, on his stomach.

"Kaven! Kaven! Kaven!"

"Sarah," he groans painfully, "what the hell...o." He opens one eye with some effort, looking tiredly at Sarah's radiantly beaming face, and half-hoping he's seeing things because no way in he…he_ck _is he going to get up before the rooster even called out today, especially not to Sarah's often sporadic and always trivial antics. "What is it this time? Need some tackling practice? Just like knocking my breath out? What if I die from you choking me, Sarah? Who'll take you to Dunbarton next week then?"

"Kaven! You have to play nice!" Sarah sings. It is probably meant to be chiding, except the effect is ruined in Kaven's ears by the way her voice sounds so alto and childish, exactly as an eleven-year old should sound. Something to that extent must have shown on his face, because her voice says a little more sternly, "Cyntia said so."

"Be as that may, I'd still like to sleep, and to do that I need you to get off me." Kaven pointedly waits for her to comply, except Sarah doesn't move, even going so far as to cross her arms over her white and heavily dirtied formal-looking jacket that has not only several buttons missing from its cuff, but also the ruffle by the neck torn away heavily, while still not removing herself from her sitting position on Kaven's stomach. "Um, Sarah, you can go and do that now."

"Nuh-uh! You have to get up, and you have to say please too!"

Darn that Cyntia and her prissy responsibilities. And her troublesome manner lessons. Though on second thought, Sarah might have created this comment as a variation of the one he used yesterday from his miserable attempt to flirt with Cyntia as he "stole" her part of dinner.

...Wait, does that mean Sarah's trying to _flirt_ with him?

...Nah, he's just considering that gesture more significantly than he should.

Either way, he's not ready to give up on his superiority complex just yet. If the girl wants him up and about today, she'll have to play by his rules first. "Oh, so that's how you want to do it," Kaven sighs with a touch of exaggerated defeat. "I guess there's only one way to solve this, right Sarah?"

"That's right!" the girl chirps.

"Mmh. Okay. Good night." With that, the man slumps his head into his miserable excuse of a pillow once more and closes his deservingly jaded eyes.

"What? Kaven! You have to wake up, you have to!"

"Not gonna," Kaven mumbles, enjoying this immature act of defying the girl's wishes simply to do so. He contentedly awaits the sensation of triumph that is starting to soothe him as he seemingly gets closer to defeating the impish girl in this particular mental battle. How he will know he won, he doesn't know yet, but he gets the feeling he's about to find out soon.

"But...Kavie!"

"Overly uncreative nicknames ain't waking me, Sarah."

"But...but..."

Kaven can sense that he's already surprisingly close to victory. The little girl is usually more reluctant to telling him what she really wants, generally resolving to make him carry out her wishes indirectly. It's not like it ever succeeds, but the fact that she didn't come up with multiple other excuses must mean there is something he actually needs to do. Either that, or the girl simply didn't have the time to make up excuses.

Kaven purposely chooses to believe the latter. "Sarah, I don't hafta get up. It's the first day of Alban Elved."

"What if someone's dying?" the girl cries out.

Kaven highly doubts it, but this merits one eye opening. "_Is_ someone dying?"

"Well...no," the girl mutters, her cheeks flushing noticeably.

"What did Cyntia say about lying?"

"But I didn't lie! Technically."

Ugh. Kaven mentally curses his own smart nature and the unfortunate passing of it into the one person who could annoy him with it. "What did Cyntia say about misleading others?"

"It's bad, and Lord Lymilark will get angry."

"Exactly. So you have to...?"

"I have to say sorry. Sorry, Kaven."

"Good." His eye closes. "Still not getting me out of bed, though."

"But...Kaven!"

And then Kaven suddenly sees it. This isn't a personal whim on the little girl's part, but something that is actually necessary. The red-haired girl only resolved to trick him as to what it is, probably to laugh at him. Therefore, victory here means that Sarah will be forced into telling him the real reason for his presence being needed. Which probably means he actually _will_ have to wake up.

"Today is garbage day!" Sarah completes.

Aha! Kaven's frown at the unappealing morning fades into a smirk in response to the decent exercise for his brain, though he actively chooses the ignore the fact that forcing Sarah into telling him the reason should be far beneath a relatively honourable man, considering their age difference. That put aside, for a moment he ponders on whether it's really necessary, as he had thought, to get up at all, since past garbage days had only consisted of –

Kaven's eyes flies open alarmingly fast as he uttered an expletive that, to his knowledge, Sarah had only known up to this point as "Starts with 'F', rhymes with 'luck', and I-actually-said-'flying-duck'!"

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><p><strong>Chapter Two – <strong>

_Serene Days I_

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><p>Garbage day consists exactly of that; the putting out of garbage, once a month, for the entire town of Tir Chonaill for someone to collect. To Kaven's extreme annoyance when he first found out, as the ones responsible for the farm that also meant either Cyntia or, more importantly, <em>he<em> is going to be the one responsible for said collection, on top of compiling it all into the compost bin, and cleaning out the chicken coop, and walking across the whole town to get to Deian's farm and collect the sheeps' wastage and lug it back to their farm so they could make a rudimentary form of fertilizer with it. None of these exactly tops his "Happy, wonderful, exciting and fun things to do before I die!" list, and none are actions that even his affection to Cyntia and his otherwise gentlemanly behaviour would let him volunteer for, and since the feeling is mutual, he has no reason to guilt over it either.

Over the years both he and Cyntia had agreed to several different competitions of sorts, to which the loser must start and finish the goddamned job. It first started with simple rock-paper-scissors, but truthfully, both had a deep-seated feeling of despise for the very idea of pure, dumb luck cursing the rest of their miserable day. They next tried for a Tic-Tac-Toe match, which evolved into a Boxes match when they made forty-six ties in a row, which in turn turned into a Go Fish match when the game took too long, which in turn had been given up entirely when they realized no one in the whole town had a complete deck of cards. Finally they had settled for plain sparring, which they practice anyways since they sometimes had to defend their chickens, Deian's sheeps, or the wandering dogs that no one is quite sure who they belong to from wildlife or bandits. Less importantly, sparring can also used as a morning stretch, or showing off, or taking out stress for whatever incident one or both of them feels like blaming the other for, so as far as Kaven is concerned, that's killing five birds with one stone.

The first time they had sparred with a first down or first blood rule, Kaven thought he had already won, being two years older and twenty kilograms heavier, except Cyntia had cleverly – ahem, _by luck_ – hurled her wooden stick at his face just when his feet had been placed nearby the strawberry patch, which resulted in him missing a step, falling down, losing, doing the subsequent eight hours of garbage/waste collection and processing, as well as working extra volunteer hours for the next few weeks at Caitin's grocery shop to make up for the strawberries he had squished. He prudently learned it is not wise to underestimate the girl.

Sarah had taken an interest in their sparring sessions for some reason, ever since the day they took her in, which is a month ago now. Kaven wasn't – and still isn't – too keen on the idea of the girl learning to fight, believing ten years old to be too young for fighting (and again, choosing to ignore the fact that he had to start learning at seven), but Cyntia had been thrilled, going out of her way to explain her every move to Sarah and even coaching the little girl on the various usages of their farming tools. By this point Kaven is pretty sure Sarah could gut a chicken with a gathering dagger, a sickle, a weeding hoe, a hatchet, a pickaxe, a broken arrow, or a handful of Royal insecticide powder with ease, on purpose or by accident. He's not too happy that not only is the freeloader freeloading, she can potentially kill one of their only livestock while she's at it.

Though other than that, Sarah is a relatively normal girl. Certainly, she had slightly strange accents and gestures, little idea who her parents are, and clothes that looks too rich for their town, as well as the most extreme case of phobia that Kaven had ever seen, but she's not someone he would have looked twice at had she not been conspicuously dropped into his and Cyntia's wheelbarrow. In fact, as much as he loathes admitting it, in a few more months' time and experience Sarah actually might not be as useless as he claims.

Maybe Duncan hadn't been completely loony when he placed her in their care, after all. At least, there would be an additional person to pass the job of waste patrol.

Which re-reminds him of the unpleasant duties that is sure to be forced on him from his lateness. So with that in mind, he nudges the auburn haired girl, who complies immediately and then runs out of his tiny, cramped hut. Kaven hurriedly reaches up and yanks his dry, dull ochre shirt off the cloth line, a shirt that, together with his pants that looks patched at the knees, Malcolm the local general store owner disdainfully calls the "Beginner Long Pants". Kaven could not care less, considering it is comfortable, decent-looking, and never needed fixing as it is in plentiful supply judging from the number he fished up from the Adelia stream. Plus, it's a pretty good combustible when necessary for the winters, especially for the freezing weeks last year.

Rolling out of his bed, which is little more than a sleeping bag placed on a box laden with moulted chicken feathers and covered with a hand-sewn sheet, he hurriedly dresses. Once he is done, the next item on his to-do list would be to grab a suitable stick. Almost absently, he reaches out an arm and breaks a long, rotting piece of wood straight off from the wall. Making a mental note to fix it later, he jumps straight out of the square emptiness on the wall Cyntia insists still be called a window, making another mental note to buy a large sheet of glass when he has the money as he lands on the uneven ground outside with barely a thump.

"Took you long enough," a cross-sounding voice calls, and Kaven turns his head to see the beautiful, black-haired girl, dressed in her most recent outfit, a green tank top and a red skirt, standing on a patch of scattered hay – used for both preventing injury from the fall, and to replace the cleaned out chicken coop later – and wielding her own wooden stick that seems to be inciting him to come closer just so it can hit him.

Kaven allows himself to grin as he notices out of the corner of his eyes that Sarah is paying attention to her pet chicken "Chicky" more than the actual fight. So much for Cyntia's "star" student.

As Kaven approaches Cyntia, her scowl deepens. "Did you just cut off a piece of the wall?"

"Nah, it was already almost broken." Kaven waves his weapon lightly. "It was a safety hazard, what would happen if Sarah accidentally got hurt from it?"

The girl's head jerks up as he says her name, but quickly returns to its original position. Cyntia's scowl lessens, though her posture is stiff as she taps her foot. Kaven tries to prevent his grin from stretching, happy that he could at least use Sarah to keep Cyntia somewhat in check, though he is somewhat annoyed that Cyntia seems to be holding Sarah more importantly than he.

In a moment he stands not two metres in front of her, and he remembers the first time Kaven had thought to spy on their neighbourhood combat instructor, Ranald, and the classes he taught to other Tir Chonaill kids in that school of his. It had taught both he and Cyntia that sparring is a fight of practicing their experience, of learning successes and mistakes, and of respecting others' skills, and deserves all courtesy viable for the partner they are revering.

So Kaven bows quickly, something that he catches Cyntia stiffly return before they each assume their respective stances. Kaven has his feet out in a light, but wide, stance and his stick is held out front like a fencing rapier, perfected for the intimidation factor against animals. Cyntia takes her usual and more defensive stance designed to absorb any wild ambushes. Both feet are planted more solidly on the ground, but not quite as apart as Kaven's, and her own weapon is held upside and pointed towards Kaven with a palm placed along the top, making it look as if she is holding on to a monkey bar at an angle.

To show his intention to start, Kaven takes a drawn-out breath first. He reminisces about the first time he did this against a gray wolf – a big mistake, as it turned out, as the wolf held no such reservations and that fight had been nothing about teaching or courtesy and much more about surviving. At the same time, however, he still learned from the wolf; quick first attacks are everything to unbalancing the opponent and winning from the start. He made sure to praise his dinner that night as he shared that tactic with Cyntia.

With two quick steps Kaven flashes in and jabs for Cyntia's face, which she parries aside with the ease of batting away lunges, turning the blade so far back the point now directly faces his own face, and with a tap to the bottom of his hand, it is sent exactly there.

Kaven pivots slightly, allowing the point to pass harmlessly by his neck, and continues the motion into a full counter clockwise spin with a fist stuck out near its completion to backhand Cyntia, who is forced to block it with a hastily raised palm, though when Kaven jabs at her again with his stick in the same motion, with no hands free she only barely jerks her head back to avoid being hit before she backs away quickly from the weapon.

She resumes her stance, and Kaven is reminded of the time a fox had stood its ground against him with the same defiant eyes as the girl in front of him. That one had been difficult to kill until Kaven thought to chain his attacks and give no room to think, no room to react.

He attacks exactly the same way as he had to the fox; a sweeping horizontal slash, followed up with a slightly pulled back swing, then a spinning hook kick, a sudden running tackle and finally a spinning side kick aimed at the gut, though Cyntia dodges everything but the last kick which she instead dances around.

Guessing what is coming next, Kaven ducks low; the swipe across his hair behind his head confirms her position, so he knocks into her stomach with his shoulder, making her grunt and stumble back, and follows up with an elbow to the side which she blocks early and pushes back against, sending Kaven nearly falling over. He glances up just in time to see her grip the wooden stick with both hands, step in, and send a strong cut down at Kaven's head, which he manages to back up from, though when she follows up quickly with an unexpected swing upward the end of the stick actually manages to scratch his cheek.

He backs up again, and tries to assume his stance before realizing Cyntia isn't being defensive like she usually acts, instead sending quick and systematic swipes at him that he keeps edging back from, until one just catches him again and he resorts to blocking them. In response, Cyntia simply swings harder, which is a tactic so unusual from their regular sessions that Kaven only realizes his weapon is breaking until it splits into two, sending one piece flying back over his shoulder, and the same stroke manages to hit him hard enough that his breath whooshes out just as it had to Sarah's own attack in the morning.

He manages not to fall over still, but Cyntia only pressures him unyieldingly, each swing seeming to channel all the frustration its wielder has into the sole target responsible for it. At this point, the girl is using no more form than a lumbering bear, and Kaven watches as carefully as he can for any opening he can find, managing to block swipe after swipe with his sorry excuse of a sword before he finally manages to catch a moment when the girl overextends herself too far, and sticks his weapon forward, catching her slightly off her shoulder with the sharp point and drawing a small amount of blood and gaining a victory.

Or so he tells himself until he realizes that he did not take into account the fact that his weapon is a good half a metre shorter; only an instant after this revelation does Cyntia's roundhouse kick slam into his gut, sending him too close to tripping over his feet for his liking. He gives out a wild slash as he struggles to recompose his balance, and he hears the sound of cloth ripping and hasty skittering.

He rights himself with a hand on the ground, and glances up to see a not-very-calm-looking girl with a new and noticeable rip on her pretty skirt, right in front of her left leg. Kaven feels a bit of annoyance building. As far as he knew, there isn't anything he had done recently to be deserving of being a punching bag.

Then it occurred to him that he _did_ try to flirt with her the day before, when he "stole" her dinner. Is that why she's being so antagonistic? Because he's such a bad romantic?

Okay, Kaven felt just a tad bit guilty now, but it's not going to stop him from avoiding the Terrible Task.

On the spur of the moment, he grabs and flings a bunch of leaves near where his hand landed in Cyntia's general direction, and for good measure he conceals his stick within the throw, before diving to the right for the other half of his stick; judging from the cry of surprise Cyntia had been both caught off-guard and hit. He snatches the sorry excuse of a weapon off the ground and darts back in for another round of melee.

Their environment had trained them well, Kaven notes as each swipe is blocked, each punch is caught, each elbow diverted and the occasional tackle braced; pain is endured, momentum is utilized and reaction is called to the point he loses count of the number of blows they trade. He realizes that, for each attack he uses, he can name an animal that either he used it against or had used it against him. It's as if he is dancing with the shadows past, leaping deftly from one adversary to another, from foxes to bats to giant spiders to wolves, and Cyntia is no more than the median that fulfills this stage to its elegant life. No more than he is the pawn of a chess game orchestrated by gods.

And then suddenly, she slips once, the weapon in her hand nearly flying out; Kaven lashes out a roundhouse kick which turns into a tornado kick which turns into a far slash across, making her hastily tumble back. The piece of his weapon he had thrown earlier catches his eyes and he darts down to retrieve it, and then he turns back to his opponent.

Cyntia has already closed in their distance, her face so close Kaven almost thinks she is about to kiss him. And then the blade is once again brought down to his head.

He catches that blow deftly, but before he can strike with his other weapon Cyntia drops the stick and grabs his shirt, pulling him into grappling distance and sending an elbow at his face which he stops with a hasty hand, dropping one his own swords in the process. He struggles at blocking her unusually aggressive uppercuts, elbows, knees, and once even a headbutt that could have flattened his nose if he hadn't shifted his head to the right, though Cyntia retaliates by actually biting his neck instead. The resulting pain is enough to make him punch Cyntia's ribs harder than he normally would.

She staggers off, and this gives him enough time to re-grab his dropped weapon, before Cyntia sets upon him like an angry bear. The ferocity behind her blows leaves more than one mark on his skin, and the proximity leaves his holding of multiple weapons rendered a useless fact. Kaven deflects the assault the best he can, trying to stop an attack coming early or attempting a counter, but absolutely nothing throws her balance off.

Until she does it herself by trying to tackle him for the first time; as Kaven sidesteps, Cyntia runs past him, her improper form apparently impeding her view, exactly what happened when he had done the same to Trefor the guard the first time Kaven had been told to spar against him. Trefor had been obnoxious, and he had been showy, but he had also dispatched Kaven effortlessly with a "move" that he calls "windmill".

Kaven drops to the ground and uses the very same tactic which starts with a low and wide sweep with his left leg. This she manages to avoid, but as her foot is placed back down Kaven suddenly springs forward, arcing from the same spin to put force behind a side chop with his left hand aimed exactly where Cyntia's knees will be at the next moment, which works brilliantly, leaving her unanchored and sending her body crashing almost completely down but for her elbow. Kaven quickly remedies this with a twist from his body that places his right hand on her lone support and yanks swiftly, hooking out said support, making her shoulder hit the ground, and ending the fight.

And just to clinch the win, Kaven completes the rotation with a shift back and a driving kick that stops just before Cyntia's flinching face.

With a wide grin, Kaven hops back up to his feet and extends a hand to her, the passionate feelings from the duel fading to one of utmost respect.

Cyntia grumbles, dejectedly taking it and pulling herself up, and mutters, "Dammit Kaven, this is the week before my birthday."

"Ah, come on, Cyntia. That was a good fight, but you lost fair."

Cyntia scowls, but then a hint of a smile comes back to her face. Her entire posture is relaxed now, seemingly no longer annoyed at him. "Fine, but you'd better make up for it."

"Mh-hm. And you suggest I do this how…?"

The girl considers for a moment. "What are you getting me?"

A small frown appears on Kaven's face as he realizes that though he had planned out her "party", the trip to Dunbarton for the seasonal carnival, he had yet to actually get her a birthday present. Last year, he had bought an anthology; the year before, a bouquet; and the year before, an undergarments set, which had earned him a slap. This time she might actually be expecting something useful. They've been starting to build up money, after all.

So something useful like a…weapon? If he pulls out all the saving techniques he has, he might be able to build up the gold for something good. And considering Nerys, Dunbarton's best weapons dealer, knows Cyntia, he might even be able to get a discount...

"I ain't telling you that one yet," Kaven responds airily. "You can wait for another week, right?"

Cyntia grins. That glint in her eyes is still there, as it had been ever since he met her – cocky, but calculating. Reckless, but responsible. Steely, but soft.

Yup, definitely soft, Kaven thinks as she leans in and kisses him on the cheek. When was the last time she did that? A month ago?

And then she whispers, "Have fun with your consolation prize."

Mature, but mischievous. That's the tone that her voice seemed to be. Kaven's mind ticks slowly for a moment – why did she say "consolation" when he is the one who had won?

The slight tugging at his shirt causes him to break out of his musings and glance down, and he sighs as he realizes, for the first time, what she meant. It is, as he considers it, a largely undesirable event that is ranked second in his things-never-to-do list only to the fate he has just avoided.

Babysitting Sarah.


	3. Serene Days II

_****A/N The 1st, the 11th, now the 21st...I see where this is going. Hopefully not, though. The later chapters shouldn't be so hard to edit. I think.****_

_****Aaugh, probably a bad idea not to leave this 'till the afternoon for one last checkover...it's 5:30 in the morning for me. x.x Whatever, too tired to care.****_

_****Hope you'll check out my Cheshire Nao Event on the MabinogiWorld Forums. I hope I haven't made the riddles too hard, though.****_

****Disclaimer:** **Mabinogi belongs to Nexon and devCAT. I own absolutely nothing in relation to it, except for the characters I thought up.****

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><p>Possibly, the third most-hated item on Kaven's list of things-never-to-do-before-he-dies list is the cleaning of his neighbours' properties.<p>

Technically, Kaven, Cyntia and Sarah have no neighbours. They're the only farmers in the small farming village that theoretically should be the booming centre of agriculture if not for the politics of what Kaven believes is the Aliech Regime. Luckily, the townspeople helped Kaven and Cyntia to learn enough for them to single-handedly cultivate enough of their land to feed not only the entire town all year, but also make a profit off of selling to various locations: usually their neighbouring city Dunbarton, occasionally the center of culture Emain Macha, and rarely the mining town of Bangor.

Kaven's isn't completely sure why the five other barns and forty wheat fields are left unattended except by him and his family, but he can guess. Duncan, the village chief, is a smart man, and simply following from that logic it is inconceivable that he will not use all the resources that should be available to him. However, if there is pressure from even higher up – for example, a parliamentary decree – then he has little choice but to follow. From what Kaven picked up through eavesdropping around town, the money he and Cyntia pay to Duncan for the renting of their farm is being paid to someone else – likely the person who actually owns the fields, seeing Duncan does not.

Furthermore, there seems to be circumstantial restrictions placed on the kind of people allowed to work at the farms. As far as Kaven can see, none of the adults seem to be able or willing to give up their respective jobs. Either through chance or manipulation, they've been placed in necessary niches, and as their population is small, all roles had to be played by _some_one, especially more so if the role is specialized – Lassar as the magic school teacher, Meven and Endelyon as ordained priest and priestess, Riley as the ore deliverer for Ferghus the blacksmith, Tracy as the logger, et cetera. Plus, all children of the townspeople are required to attend swordsmanship school and they are also forced to enlist in the Royal Army for a four-year minimum service after graduation, and when the few that comes back settles down, there always seems to be a job that required immediate filling – a new position at the bank, usually, but sometimes a representative for a parliamentary debate that spans years, or another owl keeper.

That leaves the job of farming open only to animals – impossible, of course – or strangers – who the townsfolk can't trust – or the elders. Tir Chonaill seemed to have chosen to ask the elders to work the farms. Of course, the problem is that there aren't enough people retired to fully operate the market, and since this regulation had apparently been going on for many years now, one by one the farm hands had probably died off.

Kaven and Cyntia had been there to see the last of the elders, apart from Duncan himself, drift into eternal sleep. It was on her recommendation that Duncan had allowed Kaven and Cyntia, to take over, even though they had been strangers at the time. It had been godsend to them – after all, they had been desperate for anything that could feed them. Duncan himself had later told Kaven that that had been the only thing that let the chief trust the two to not default or take advantage of their new positions.

So far it works. Kaven and Cyntia are a little shorter of money than they'd like, but in general so is the town. More importantly, Tir Chonaill is functioning smoothly, and there had been no need for Duncan to have to take over the farms himself, nor a need to appeal for aid or reconsideration from Tara, the capital. Things can now go on like this for a fairly long time.

As for the _why_, however, Kaven only has an inkling of an idea. He had seen that other towns has their own crops fields, as well – Dunbarton has potato fields, Emain has corn fields, and Taillteann even has tomato patches – but most locations are still short of food needed to feed the entire population, which is where Taillteann and Tir Chonaill came in. Seeing this made Kaven realize that should towns have limited agriculture – that is, if they heavily relied on food that came in from other towns – in an unforeseeable event like an attack by Fomors or possible disruption of relations between towns, it will leave some places where complete vulnerability showed in the form of famine. From there, Kaven can understand the security aspect of needing some base in food stock for each and every town, and from there, Kaven can realize the necessity of letting the other towns' agricultural markets better compete with Tir Chonaill's own ones.

That did not explain why the ownership of _their _land did not rest with Tir Chonaill, however. It explains why the regulations are in place, but not why _they_, probably the Regime, own the land he works on. And it also did not mean that Kaven likes the situation at all. Yes, this method is much more secure for the continent in general, but no lack of specialization makes a market fairly inefficient, puts cracks into Kaven's business, strains the economy of Tir Chonaill as a whole, and _forces him to goddamn clean the barn houses each month_.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Three – <strong>

_Serene Days II_

* * *

><p>Kaven moodily kick away a piece of timber on the floor, which nearly hits Sarah. "Hey!" she squeaks, cuddling Chicky protectively.<p>

"Sorry," Kaven mutters, though he isn't all that sorry, really. In his books, Sarah is as useless as they come. It doesn't help that she's not even _trying_ to help. Of course, she's barely had any experience working at a farm, but Kaven purposely ignores this fact.

He dusts off the cabinet in this room, sneezing once as a cloud billows up into his face, and then checks each drawer once to make sure no bugs are living inside. Once that is done he dusts off the bed that is considerably plushier than his own, though it still had nothing on Piaras' inn. All this while, Sarah feeds her chicken with some cooing and giggling, Chicky clucks several times every minute, and Kaven grumbles distractedly about something. Listening in to his own speech, he realizes he is annoyed at Duncan for being so damn firm about the other houses and other fields being maintained in good condition.

Then again…that supports his guess about this land being on lease to Tir Chonaill. Kaven isn't sure how much the original owners want to keep this place, but if they really are the Royal Regime he doesn't quite want to bring attention to himself by shirking his responsibilities. He and Cyntia both need this job, and besides, there's that slight chance that one of the guards will remember him from the _incident_.

No, for now he'll do as he's told. One of these days, hopefully he can own his own farm.

But until then… "Sarah, do you mind actually helping me clean up? At least blow off the dust where you can." He finishes saying that only when he realizes that the window he's wiping off is the last thing needed to tidy in this room. "Okay, nevermind. Just help me weed the fields then."

Something jabs into his leg irritatingly, and Kaven's eyes flicker to Chicky standing at his leg like a dog to the signpost. Having made that simile he moves his legs away. His annoyed face turns to stare at Sarah.

Only to land on her small, violently shivering back.

"Sarah?" His general irritation now turning into slight concern, he moves to her side and reaches out to her. When his hand touches her shoulder, however, icy cold attacks his fingertips like a wolf biting, and he jerks away quickly with a hiss, and he glares.

Only now does he see the faint blue aura – mana, the magical equivalent of blood and energy – that curls up in wisps and puffs out of her frame. Kaven had seen several different training mages go through that similar incident, except those had only been on one extremity at a time. Here, Sarah's whole body is spitting out blue steam in all directions, which definitely means it is _not_ good.

So this is mana system instability. Dilys, the town's healer, had only told him that a week ago that for some reason Sarah's internal magic circulation is somehow screwed up, not having enough to be healthy, which is apparently why she gets her occasional nightmares. Dilys had also said the mana wouldn't behave badly to the point of having physical impact, but she must've been wrong if it left his hand freezing.

And frankly, it's going to be a damn pain if she's going to do start having random magical traumas left and right. Kaven's concern melts back into a ticked off demeanour, which really he has every goddammed right to be considering the time, effort, and money that could potentially go into keeping her relatively healthy which might not even work anyways.

Kaven takes his comment back. Sarah is not a normal girl.

She is such a fragile girl.

So easy to _break_ under his hand.

Suddenly, the girl gasps, her head turning wildly. He sees her eyes dart around like vibrations before they settle on him.

"Nightmare?" Kaven asks idly.

Sarah shifts her weight, reaching back to a wall and leaning to it. Her expression is suddenly wary, as if she wants to say something but is afraid what it will cost her. Perhaps rightfully so, as Kaven is more critical of Sarah than Cyntia is. "It's nothing," she murmurs. "I mean, it really was nothing. Just all black." The girl shudders.

"So it's nothing I should worry about." Kaven does not even bother building it into a question – after all, the less trouble he has to go through for her (and even _that _is only because it appeases Cyntia, of course), the better.

"I don't know what it was. It's like…it was like my eyes were closed."

"They probably were," Kaven points out dryly.

"They were trying to make me see."

Her flustered fantasy boring Kaven, he tries to tune her out as he grabs his supplies and moves out of the residence pointedly. When the door opens again with barely a creak the cool air drifts into his faces, and he inhales the rich scent of leaves that are starting to fall heavily. He walks over to the next farmhouse in line, keeping his sights directly on it even with the irritation known as Sarah follows behind him.

"Someone's moving. I mean, she's not really moving, but she has this whole board set up with kings and queens and – and pawns. But she's getting promoted – I don't know why! She wants all the pawns to move one way, but she just doesn't want to be a queen!"

"Humble," Kaven mutters as he unlocks the door to the farmhouse and lets himself in. Sarah apparently trails behind him, because he can still hear her talking.

"She thinks, if she, if she's attacked and attacked with paintings she can get her to run to her. But she doesn't want to – why should she? Why is getting promoted all that important? There are eight pawns – but one queen. But she's still not giving up!"

"Sarah, please just be a little more quiet –"

"She doesn't want to, but she and all her opponents gambled on her. The chosen is coming. Even if I don't want it to happen."

The cracking of her voice actually makes Kaven pause. His head turns to confirm his suspicions – Sarah's looking like she's about to cry.

"Er –" Awkwardly, Kaven sets his cleaning tools down on the wooden floor.

"No, don't worry about it. Just – let me stay with one of you. That's all that matters." Sarah starts stroking her pet softly, even as Kaven watches her in bewilderment.

"Oh…um, okay, then. Just…just remember to take that mana herb powder with you at dinner. Dilys said that's best. And go to bed properly. And don't act too strange around Cyntia…"

Sarah fumbles with her seed bag even before Kaven stops speaking, and the man feels his annoyance building again. Really, at least she could _pretend_ she was listening to him. He just tiredly rubs his eyes, counting to three, and when he opens them again, he is greeted with the sight of Sarah now frowning at her chicken, who isn't moving, even with the handful of food Sarah is holding for it.

"Chicky? Are you feeling alright?"

The chicken only clucks in response.

"Chicky is old, Sarah. Let it lie down."

Sarah stares at Kaven somewhat confusedly. "Old?"

"Well, yeah. You know, aged? It was born a long time ago."

"But I've only been with Chicky for a week."

"A month," Kaven corrects. "And besides, that doesn't matter. It was pretty old even when you first grabbed it." Actually, old enough that Kaven and Cyntia had been considering killing it and eating it. It can't lay any more eggs, and they would rather not let it be fox chow. And then _Sarah_ had come in and took the damn bird as a pet, so now Cyntia's all about keeping it, and Kaven doesn't have the heart to disagree with her. "And since it's that old, you might want to let it rest more than moving it around, Sarah." Dammit, there goes good food…for a while, at least. Actually, Kaven doesn't know if it's a good idea to eat an animal that's died naturally. But better that than bury it and let wild animals dig it up for free dinner.

"It's fine." Sarah hugs the chicken tighter. "Chicky need to learn to walk with me, right? Because I'm keeping him forever."

Kaven just sighs. Does she not know what death means?

And then a light brown barn owl flies in through the open door, nearly whacking Sarah in the face if not for her quick dodge. Kaven recognizes this bird immediately.

"Hey Rock. Duncan need me?"

In response, visiting owl simply drops the envelope it is holding in its beak, letting it spiral down to earth until Kaven catches it and opens it with one fluid hand. When he reads its contents, his eyebrows raise.

"Someone lost an earring...again?" He takes a moment to glare at Rock. "It's not a prank, is it? He's sure someone really dropped it by accident?"

The owl turns its head clockwise, as if questioning the sanity of the man for talking to an animal that knows no more than he does. Kaven simply sighs. He peers back into the envelope, and after noting the leafy bundle inside and guessing what it is, he plucks it out of the envelope and drops it into Sarah's lap. He folds the letter and puts it into an old pocket sewn onto his outfit. "Start cleaning up for me, Sarah. This trip's going to take me two, three hours? If I'm lucky."

"I'm coming with you."

That answer is so unexpected Kaven has to mentally rerun it again in his head before he _really _registers what she said. "No. There's no need for you –"

"Two hours, right? So how long is that? Fifty, sixty kilometres away?"

"Sarah, listen –"

"Oh, I know, it's a hundred and twenty kilometres of walking, right?"

Where the heck did she come up with these numbers? "No, _five_ kilometres of walking. In total. Most of the time's just to look around –"

"Why only five?'

"What do you mean, why only five? That's how fast humans walk!"

"Oh, okay. Will I be okay in these clothes?" she asks brightly.

"Are you kidding? It's going to be _freezing_."

"Then I'll just go get Cyntia's coat!" she says brightly, and hurries away with Chicky in her arms.

Kaven groans. "That thing isn't even going to fit you! Take the stuff she's got in her bottom right-hand drawer!"

Honestly, that girl. If not for his guidance, she wouldn't survive a minute in the northern parts of Tir Chonaill.

…Hey, wait a minute.

Did she just trick him into implying she can go?

…Okay, Kaven can't lie there. The girl is worthy of a _little_ bit of respect.

* * *

><p>Eventually, during their walk, Kaven says, "You didn't have to wear that yet, you know. It's not going to be cold until we actually get up there."<p>

Sarah only shakes her head. She had put on the outfit that looks suspiciously like a sleeveless dress, with long stockings, cloth armlets by the shoulders, and fingerless gloves – Cyntia's old winter wear, and though she outgrew it, she did not want to part with it for some reason. Kaven still wonders why Cyntia had asked him to buy it, since it isn't exactly a conventional winter wear, leaving open too much skin at the shoulders and arms. Now that he thought about it, he wonders why the makers designed it this way.

Most of all, he wonders why he even considered buying it, since on most winter days Cyntia had to lean on him to stay warm.

But while they are walking, he may as well refresh himself with his history. "Sidhe Sneachta. Have we told you about it yet?"

"Shee Snick-Thuh? I don't think so."

"Mmh. Let's try something different then – have we told you about Mores the druid yet?" Again the little girl shakes her head, and Kaven finds himself already in a slightly depressed mood at her ignorance. He wonders what life could have been like, if one month ago they hadn't taken the little girl in. Last year, he spent most of his autumn days finishing up making his own hut, and the year before that had been alternations between guiding tourists and fixing up Deian's pasture's fence. This year he _might_ have been able to get a lot more part-time errands than usual. And he certainly wouldn't have to bother keeping an eye on and educating the darn girl while doing an errand for the village elder. "Well, basically, there was a great war in a place called Mag Tuireadh. There were a lot of big battle and fights, way bigger that what you see me and Cyntia do sometimes."

"So...you mean, there were giant people sparring with each other?"

Kaven sighs, smoothing out the short cloak-like sweater he is holding. The fur adorning the neck, elbow, and leg areas are all tattered with tufts missing. A pity this coat of his didn't have long sleeves. Also a pity he lost the boots and gloves that go with it. He gets back to the story. "Erm, no, I don't mean big people, I mean big numbers. It was a pretty bad battle, and there were a lot of heroes who went in there and never came back out. Mores the Druid was one of them, and he's one of the few people whose name is still remembered. One other example is Lugh Lavada, the Knight of Light."

Sarah remains quiet, so Kaven continues. "They built the structures for the memorial of a great wizard and his students here in Sidhe Sneachta. Something about natural resources convinced them this is the best to build a winter field." He pauses once more to nod respectfully at Trefor the guardsman, who nods back as the pair passes him. "To represent the mages, they built lots and lots of snowmen. One of them is said to be the best snowman of all, to represent the greatest mage of all time."

"Mores?"

"Heck no. Mores was the best known Druid from the Second War of Mag Tuireadh, and even he couldn't come close to power or fame with Uscias, the mage with thirty disciples."

When they reach the end of the path they are taking, a strange structure meets their sight. Sarah reaches for it, but Kaven holds her back. "Do you notice these patterns?" he asks her, tapping the four-pronged platform that blossoms from the earth like a clawed hand grabbing the air. Each of them has four or five signs scribed, though not all the pillars have the same set, or the same positions. One looked like a falcon or a heart, depending on position; another appeared to be a map of Tir Chonaill, except a lot thinner and with a large circle at the bottom; a third that seemed similar to a golem; and two different versions of a sun, one which has a thicker circle and the other that has longer rays. "They were created with magical power, with those symbols as the medium, to teleport the person entering into the fields somewhere far away, somewhere colder, so the snowmen can exist. There are two of these, though, so try not to confuse which one is the one we took. Come on, let's go."

On that note, he pulls the little girl forward, prompting a small cry of surprise, and steps onto the platform that glows blue once under him and deposits him on a similar, but more cold, exit. Kaven now pulls on the garment he has carried to this point over his shirt. "Remember when I told you Uscias has thirty disciples? Well, this –" Kaven gestures to the multitudes of snowmen in front of him, and Sarah stares with her mouth agape – "is all the students, and the master himself. It's a pretty good source of revenue for Tir Chonaill, with so many touring here just to pay respects to the greatest Druid."

"Wow!"

"Yeah, that's what I thought too. Now, have we told you –?"

"How far away are we?" Sarah meets his gaze with wide eyes. "Are we really, _really_ far from home?"

"Pretty far, yeah, but here's a secret: the mages actually use magic to make it snow. That's why it's not cold – well, not as cold as our winters _can_ be." Kaven grins. "It's not like they weren't already using magic, with this –" he gestures to the teleportation gate – "and they were erecting a memorial for a druid, _and_ this place supposed had a good source of Erg – that's another form of energy, by the way, and it's slightly different from mana – but anyways, they could channel it all. So of course they'd put a bit of magic in the weather too. Now, have we told you about Eerich the snow imp yet?"

The girl shakes her head, and Kaven chuckles. "And I thought we bought that book for you. It's basically about a snow imp who has a magical pouch that can duplicate items. He once stole a valuable-looking earring, and whenever someone hits the snowman he's hiding in, he makes a copy and throws a it out to make them go away."

"An imp lives in a snowman?" Sarah asks with wide eyes.

"Heck no. Someone just made that story up because it's supposed to be funny how many times people tell Duncan they lost their earrings and find them all in the same place. Of course, most of them are pranks, but..."

"But?"

"Well, some of them _were_ actually found stuck inside a snowman. And the rings are all from the same snowman." Kaven shakes his head in bemusement. "Maybe it's magic. Whatever's lost here could just magically be channelled into a particular one, just to make finding stuff easier. It explains why this place doesn't look littered with leaves or carrots or whatnot." Kaven begins moving again, and Sarah streaks past him at the next moment, so he calls, "Be careful of the coyotes!"

The little girl yelps and moves back closer to him.

The next few minutes passes with little eventful happenings, and consisted solely of Kaven and Sarah hitting each snowman by themselves, trying to find out which of the snowmen collected the rings. Occasionally Sarah squeals out in excitement, only to call out the exclamation had been a false alarm, it was actually a stick or a pebble that had fallen off. Kaven keeps hitting only the snowmen he deems unique, since he recalled that the snowman is supposed to stand out from others. One had a left "arm" placed slightly lower than the rest; another had a misshapen head. By the time he gets to the one with a large amount of teeth, he had gone through seven different "unique" snowmen, so he hits it with little expectations of a random earring magically appearing out of it.

Which just _had_ to be the moment when the snowman spits out a frozen earring that bounces hard off his temple, causing him to lose balance and crash hard into the snow. He groans in disgust, half a mind dedicated to a systematic destruction of the offending snowman.

"I'll get it!" the petite voice calls, and Kaven waves his hand wearily, signalling he has heard the message.

Then his eyes snap open when he hears a sudden, shrill shriek.

Snatching out the gathering dagger he keeps in his pouch just for occasions like this, he moves with much more intent than before, managing to grab onto the furry back of Sarah's winter clothes and heaving her backwards with force. He observes the scene in front of him with slightly grim annoyance.

Six coyotes – _six_ of them – are growling at both him and Sarah. Behind them, he sees the rear ends of several creatures vanishing into the distance, and guesses that they are the young. Honestly, Sarah gives out more trouble than she is worth at times. Ah, scratch that; she definitely _is_ trouble.

Rubbing his head and trying to rub out that thought with him, he tries to concentrate on the animals. At first they'd be on their guard, as startled animals unsure of how to proceed, then they'd start circling him, trying to size him up, and finally, when they become more confident, they'd each attack. The only good thing is that being coyotes, they didn't know how to work cooperatively on him like their cousin wolves potentially could have.

For now... "Sarah, just run." He waves a hand vaguely at the structure he could see in the distance, and adds, "Just keep running until you meet someone, and then stay there until I pick you up."

Not turning his eyes away from the glares of the animals, he holds out his knife. Two of the coyotes start spreading out, and one dumb enough actually runs at him prematurely, and jumps – straight into Kaven's waiting dagger, and he swipes the dead animal off his weapon as he evaluates his adversaries once more.

No point running away, after all – they can run faster than humans can, and he'd no doubt they can take out his unprotected back eventually. He'd also have to be careful not to let any past him, since he's pretty sure Sarah, for all of Cyntia's praises, is not exactly ready to kill anything stronger than a sheep, and that will cost her if one attacks.

And if all of them attack at once, even he would be dead meat. He only possesses two usable extremities after all, three if he could attack with one leg too, but his concentration is not nearly flexible enough. Plus, it might only be a matter of time until a Fomor – the demonic beings that are the enemy of mankind – notices this situation through the animals' senses and take them over, which would complicate the situation even further. Quick and efficient it'll have to be, then.

With that final thought, he lunges ahead, catching a clearly surprised coyote by the neck, and tries to strike out at the next one; although he slits the second target by the rib, two closes in and bites the arm he tries to wave them away with. A grunt of pain escapes his lips, and he resists the urge to shake them off, going along with their pulling instead and getting one in the eye with a subsequent stab, while kicking out with his back feet a second later, anticipating the last one taking advantage of his preoccupation. Sure enough, the blow catches and likely crushes the face of the poor animal, so Kaven turns back to the coyote digging even deeper into his arm, a fierce growl escaping from its mouth, to which the man only sighs, "Dumb animal," before jamming his knife into its forehead. Discarding the carcass quickly, he turns to the whimpering behind him, and coldly stabs through the eye again, ending it.

It's a shame, to have to kill like that, but Kaven had no choice; he heard tales about animals that were allowed to live, but developed a grudge against the scents it detected the day it was attacked, which usually culminated in a scene many years later when the animal takes its revenge. Besides, Kaven needed some money; Fomors left scrolls that are left on particular animals for surveillance and control purposes could be cashed in to Duncan, who is authorized by the royal regime to give payments for them. It would help pay for next week's food costs, at least.

All of the bodies poofed with black aura all right, signs that the animals had been possession material for Fomors, but none left anything except a fairly bloody earring behind. Kaven winces as he scoops it up and tries to wipe the blood off the snowman besides him, resulting in a red extension to the mouth that made it look disturbingly like a smile. Kaven stops at that point and moves on to another snowman that manages to soak up the blood nicely, before turning his attention to his arm.

It didn't look too bad, and he definitely had worse, although he'd still need to treat it soon. But first, he needs to pick up the more-than-useless girl. So he hauls himself over to the teleportation gate, wincing when the platform flashes blue again and his injury flares, and then he lands on solid ground, back in Tir Chonaill and limping over to Trefor.

With luck, she found someone to protect her before she had to run to Trefor, but as Kaven walk farther and farther forward and the bites start to burn, his annoyance builds. It's almost like the girl _wants_ to kill him, just from the amount of walking she makes him do to get to her. Of course, technically it's not her fault, but Kaven, again, chooses to ignore the fact that pops up on his head.

By the time he arrives in front of a jaw-slacked Trefor, he has half a mind to simply leave the little girl with the guard and walk straight forward. Then Cyntia's face flashes in his mind and he sighs, though he is still not in a mood to talk. "Coyotes, six of them," he says tiredly to Trefor. "Just gimme Sarah and we'll be gone."

"Are you seeing Dilys first?" Trefor asks immediately, but then coughs and adjusts his gray visor as he asks, "What was that about Sarah?"

"I told her to run."

"Okay."

"As in run to _you_, Trefor."

"...Okay."

Kaven glares at him. "Look, I'd like to go back home now, and if you don't mind, give this to Duncan." He drops the earring into the opening of Trefor's overall/armour hybrid, to which the guard cries in surprise and drops his sword, fumbling underneath his armour and yelping something about how ticklish it is, before Kaven ignores him and moves past.

He makes three steps before he realizes something is missing: the sound of Sarah's quick footsteps. He turns and squints at the panicky man. "Sarah's not here?"

Trefor only tries to reach under his shirt again, before shrieking in pain from something that is not immediately visible to Kaven. He spares a moment to mentally compare Trefor to a chest-beating buffoon, and then he drops his gaze to Trefor's legs, which Sarah once hid behind. No eyes greets back at him.

Suddenly, Kaven understands. There are _two _of the teleportation platforms in that field. In his haste to get Sarah out of danger, he must have gestured to the wrong one – the one that leads even further north.

He curses once before he starts running back to Sidhe Sneachta, all thoughts about the earring, his arm, and the comfortable hut he calls home driven out of his mind and replaced by an image of a smelly Cyntia with a wicked sickle.


	4. The Mage of Sidhe Sneachta

_******A/N My quickest update yet. ^^ Enjoy!******_

******Disclaimer:** **Mabinogi belongs to Nexon and devCAT. I own absolutely nothing in relation to it, except for the characters I thought up.******

* * *

><p>White. It's all white.<p>

It's all white after white after white…

Xarah doesn't try to run back. If she turns she will be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of white. She's barely holding on as it is.

So she keeps running and running, moving past rows and rows of completely whited out trees, desperately searching at the end of the white path for something that simply isn't _white_.

Why must it all be so white?

Why did the path turn so white?

Why is the Goddess torturing her, why is she making her blunder through this burning, blinding passage of white?

At this rate, Xarah will die in an environment so derisively white she will never be able to make out her friends' faces.

No! She cannot think this way. She pushes on, willing her legs to move faster, faster…

"Umph!"

Bouncing back into the snow, she opens her eyes, and immediately almost vomits. The all-white scenery has been replaced by all brown, shaggy-fur like view that Xarah shivers and backs away from, decidedly terrified. She is about to turn and brave the white again instead, when the hulking mass of the terrible brown turns.

Instantly her eyes are captivated by its face. Its black eyes have an intelligent quality about them that she thinks she could see. Its muzzle attracts her attention next, a relieving gray tone in the middle of a tidal wave of brown, with a cute dark nose right in the middle. Xarah instantly recognizes the quadruped animal from a description given to her by Kaven, an animal he had only barely managed to kill; a fully grown brown bear.

She stares, astonished, at the bear for a long moment, and the bear stares back, perhaps wondering why she isn't running and screaming bloody murder like any other sensible person who slams into its rump.

This comment makes her giggle, and then she stands confidently. "I can work with you!" she declares happily, before scooping up some snow off the ground and flinging it at the bear. It rears back, and Xarah frowns. "Stay still!"

Surprisingly, the bear obeys, though it seems wary as Xarah scoops up more snow, and tosses it onto its head, back, arms, legs, and sides. Most fall off, but Xarah is satisfied with her final product, and expresses this with a comment. "There! All better!"

With another total disregard for whatever sense Cyntia should have hammered into her, Xarah promptly snuggles up to the bear's side.

A moment later, the bear only puts its arms around her, and grunts in what Xarah would consider an awkward tone if the bear is a human.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Four – <strong>

_The Mage of Sidhe Sneachta_

* * *

><p>"You're a nice friend, Mr. Bear," the little girl sighs happily. "I didn't know animals were as nice as you. Maybe I could have talked to the coyotes too."<p>

The bear only grunts again. Xarah guesses what it means, and frowns.

"No, really! I accidentally walked into a lot of coyotes with their cute little pups too!" Xarah ashamedly sighs. "Actually, that's why I had to run here. The coyotes looked really scary, and Kaven told me to run this way and wait with the first person I met. You're not a person, but you count!" The girl hugs the bear enthusiastically, though even with her arms stretched they reach not even half of the bear's neck.

When she pulls back, the item she had tucked into her shirt much earlier somehow falls out, landing on the snow below. Xarah frowns and picks the mana herb up, then checks under her winter outfit. The shirt she still has on doesn't look like there's anything wrong, but when she puts a hand into the same pocket she had put her medicine into, all her fingers feels at the bottom is air. "Oh, darn. Cyntia will have to fix that later."

She is about to put the Mana Herb in a different pocket when the bear suddenly moves its head closer and sniffs at product. Xarah blinks before something occurs to her. "Are you hungry?"

The bear sniffs again, a sign that Xarah takes for an affirmative. "I didn't know bears ate Mana Herbs! Here," she says, and thrusts her package to the bear's face. "I would've brought more, but usually I just put them in Cyntia's drawer back at our hut. I only had this one because I was in a hurry. Sorry." Xarah sighs. "Sometimes I wonder why I eat it at all – it tastes so, 'Bleah!' But Dilys said it's the best thing for nightmares, and Duncan, Kaven and Cyntia all listened to her. She told us I didn't have a good amount of mana in my body or something like that. It doesn't make sense at all, if you ask me. _Can_ you ask me?"

When she faces the bear again, she notices with a mild bit of annoyance that it is staring at her with wider eyes and its mouth somewhat open, as if it is a human in an animal's mind. More importantly, even though she offered her medicine to the bear, it isn't taking it.

So Xarah, against whatever sense that should have been there in the absence of the common one, simply sticks the hand with the herb straight into the bear's mouth.

"Ew," she says as she withdraws her saliva-dripping hand and wipes it on the bear's pelt. The bear in question is hacking and choking, and Xarah feels a moment of guilt as she watches her new friend. "Sorry, Mr. Bear, but I really didn't want to eat that today."

As its noisy digestive problems trail off, its head lets out a low growl from its position in the snow. Xarah smiles cheekily, having heard a similar tone from Kaven and knowing exactly what it means. "Aww, did I hurt your feelings? How about a kiss to make it all better?" she says, and follows up with a noisy smooch straight to her newly-appointed big brother, who bats at her with a massive paw that probably should have sent her flying if it wasn't so careful with being gentle.

But speaking of her big brother...Xarah braves one look at the path she has come from, that blizzarding hailstorm of absolute blankness. She has enough time to think that whatever Kaven is doing to the coyotes, it shouldn't be taking this long, before the sheer overwhelming colour overtakes her senses once more and Xarah has to turn her face away quickly, to the bear's questioning face.

"You think I'm stupid, don't you?" she suddenly whispers.

The bear doesn't react.

"Yes, I guess you'd be right. I should be scared of you, like Cyntia and Kaven are. Actually, I _am_ scared of you. It's just..._that_ scares me more." She gestures her hand to the general direction of the winding path, at which the bear gazes for a moment before turning back to her, though it doesn't seem to be enlightened by her comment. "No, I guess not," Xarah mumbles, "you're just a bear, after all. Don't leave me, okay?"

And with that abrupt statement, she leans her entire weight onto the bear, and closes her eyes. Instantly the darkness becomes pronounced for her, and though she tries to fight it, she falls asleep with the same conditions that has plagued her mind every time she had gone to bed – terror of the black that swallows her alive.

* * *

><p><em>Can you hear me?<em>

This nightmare...it's different somehow. It's still dark, and it's still scary, but Xarah can tell there's something different. Last time, it had been her friends' presence.

Cyntia. Kaven.

And they always disappeared.

_Ah, so you can hear me..._

Oh, there had been other presences as well. A shadow, darker than black. A silver-then-black piece of armour. Gold scales. A quill pen. Red hair.

None of them are here at the moment. But what is?

Suddenly Xarah sees it – a stone platform, with pillars placed on the edges like the hours of a clock, comes into view with a pool of water in the middle. More importantly, standing on top of the water is a woman with an elegant white dress and black hair.

She also happens to have black wings.

Xarah starts to feel a little calmer when she sees this woman, and even starts walking over.

And then suddenly stops.

She has that – that _feeling_, somehow. Even though Xarah knows she hadn't met this woman before, she somehow knows –

This woman is scarier than the darkness that surrounds her.

Fear grabs her heart again, squeezing it with utter disdain, far more powerfully than she ever felt before. Her fear of uniform colours, that – that is nothing, a raccoon scratching at her legs at best. This woman – this woman, is a four-headed snake, one that could spit fire, freeze her, strike lighting, or poison her with the merest hint of a wish, before swallowing her piece by agonizing piece. With nowhere to run, once she got in the middle.

The solution is clear. She can't get into the middle.

_I know this is a difficult request..._

Xarah hears only that line before turning and fleeing into the darkness that suddenly seems like a teddy bear in comparison.

* * *

><p>"Xarah! Oy, Xarah!"<p>

Someone is shaking her.

The woman is shaking her.

The woman is about to get her.

Her eyes flash open as she reaches for the first thing that comes to mind – the Royal insecticide pouch that usually has a home on her shorts' pocket, her first line of defence by throwing it into something's face. When her fingers grab nothing but snow, and she realizes her change of outfit, she decides to go for the next best action – a shrill scream.

"Gah! What the hell!"

That does not sound like a woman. The voice is a little too deep. Xarah cracks one eye open, afraid it truly is the winged woman from her dreams, but all she finds is a recognizable, annoyed face.

"K-Kaven," she stammers as she tries to push herself up, but is saved the trouble when Kaven hoists her and loads her on to a nearby snow-covered rock.

"Just a hint, Xarah. Don't do that. Not unless you were planning to give me a working ear for the Last Samhain."

This comment is absurd enough for Xarah to stop hyperventilating and start giggling, although it quickly turns to a gasp and lightheadedness when she only sees white. She quickly refocuses her gaze to Kaven's somewhat worried one.

"What happened? I hold you to get to the first person you see. Why did you stop here?"

"S-saw someone," Xarah responds shakily. "He's a bear, and he was friendly. He warmed me up."

Kaven's face is unreadable for a moment, and then he glances away. Xarah follows his gaze, which lands on the spot he picked her up from, though she sees nothing useful, only her footprints, coyotes' occasional tracks and the paw prints from the bear she talked about.

Apparently deciding not to question her, Kaven asks, "_Another_ nightmare?"

"It – it was _scary_. There was this woman, this black-winged woman, white dress, she looked really nice, but she – she – she was asking –" The girl shudders involuntarily. "I don't want to see her again."

"We'll put Dilys' prescription in your lunch from now on, then."

"Okay." The girl shivers again. "Can we go now?"

Kaven simply lifts her off and sets her on his shoulders, though he grunts as he does this. He starts moving, but then he stops.

"What is it?"

Kaven doesn't answer, only moves more cautiously forward again, so Xarah takes a look at Kaven's face's general direction.

She does not see anything immediately, only the snow that starts to make her feel sick again, but her attention is called to fine, straight lines on the ground she had missed at her preliminary sweep.

It looked like: uoplipL.

"Wo-pli-pel," Xarah reads, and her face lights up. "That must be the bear's name!"

"Um, Xarah –"

"Oh, shush, Kaven! Bears can write too!" And then, Xarah hollers into the sky. "Thank you, Uoplipl! I'll come back and see you soon!"

And then quietly, Xarah mutters excitedly, "Next time, I'll have lot and lots more mana herbs for you to eat!"

* * *

><p><strong><em>If you're feeling confused about the personalities, remember that different perspectives show different views. In Xarah's view, Kaven is a smart older brother. In Kaven's view, XarahSarah is an annoying little brat that he shouldn't have to deal with if it wasn't for Cyntia._**

**_Reviews can tell me how well I illustrated this in-prose. ^^_**


	5. The First Missing Warrior

**_A/N Updates kinda getting slower...whoops. Anyways, lotta dialogue this chapter! ^^_**

**_For whatever it's worth, a belated happy holidays._**

******Disclaimer:** **Mabinogi belongs to Nexon and devCAT. I own absolutely nothing in relation to it, except for the characters I thought up.******

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><p>It's just so damn <em>tiring <em>today.

The sparring with Cyntia in the morning. Babysitting Sarah. The trek up north for Duncan's request. The unnecessary scrap with six coyotes. Running back and forth around Sidhe Sneachta. And of course, carrying the damn girl the whole way to Tir Chonaill.

"Goddammit," Kaven grumbles to the girl. "I'm only carrying you back because if I made you walk Cyntia would kick me into the river." Though, Sarah had fallen asleep halfway back, so he didn't expect any response to pipe up.

The dirt path winds into the stone square of Tir Chonaill, and he spots Duncan by the bottom of the hill that leads up to his personal cabin, which is located to the east of the square. Kaven moves to him, depositing the little girl down by the giant oak tree sprouting from the middle of the hill, before flopping down above the stone carving embedded into the ground in front of a kindly smiling Duncan.

"Why did I take this job again?" Kaven asks Duncan dejectedly.

He chuckles; his long, brownish red vest brightened by the sun and shoulder-length grey hair waving lazily, he slowly shakes his head. "I must be hearing things. Kaven Milton, complaining? I still remember you as a tyke, boasting to me you can do things better than I."

"That's different, chief. I was talking about _your_ job, and besides, I was younger then."

"So you find that as you grow into a man, work at the farm has become harder?"

"Just more tiring," Kaven grumbles. "And then you put Sarah on _us_. You could've let her live with Caitin, or Nikky, or Lassar, or Ranald, or even yourself! But no, you just _had_ to let _Cyntia_ take her in when she begged."

"Passion and love are the greatest qualities for a mother, Kaven, and Cyntia had plenty of that. How can I refuse her when she had been so determined to take care of the child?" Duncan smirks. "And I did believe, perhaps she needed to practice parenting for when you and Cyntia..."

"Not another word," the brunet growls, and Duncan only laughs harder. "Ugh. Did you get the earring?"

"Trefor sent it to me by owl, yes. But I must insist for you to register at Tara's Royal Post Office by this point. Having a personal delivery owl may be more convenient than using the public mail system, or borrowing other people's owls."

"And too darn expensive."

"I've offered to cover your costs –"

"You already let us live at the farm. I'm not dumb, Duncan. I can see what things are really worth. Getting an owl is both useless and expensive." His own conclusion about Duncan's precarious position flashes into his mind, and he adds, "And I can't let you pay for us any more than what you're already doing for our home."

Duncan smiles again, with that little grin that always means he knows more than he's letting on. "What makes you think I am paying for the farm? Unless you mean how much I regret the fact that your only talent, year after year, seems to be turning the strawberries blue?"

"That is _not_ my fault," Kaven says hotly, though keeping his face straight. However, Duncan's mirth did not disappear and, to his irritation, Sarah giggles in her sleep. "Cyntia messed up before, too. How 'bout the time she gave the chickens indigestion? Those things vomited on me when I tried to collect the eggs. Or when she somehow broke the ceiling – during _winter_? We had to sleep together 'cause we would have _frozen_ otherwise, it was so cold!"

Only Duncan's laughing indicates Kaven said something stupid, but he has to think for a moment before he realizes what it is. "Oh, yeah, laugh at me," Kaven mutters, "not about Ranald being drunk in the square, or the giant wolves prowling in the fields, or even about the brown bear loitering up north."

The elder hiccups slightly, before starting another coughing frenzy into his hand. For two seconds, Kaven wonders if it's even possible to actually die of laughter, and whether Duncan would be the first.

Then he realizes Duncan isn't so much laughing as coughing out of surprise. "Duncan? What's wrong?"

"Oh, erm, excuse me." The elder's face grimaces slightly, and then he coughs again into his hand. "I, ah, didn't expect there to be a brown bear so far up north. Are you sure you've seen it?"

"I don't actually know. Sarah's the one who actually saw it. Think we need a team of hunters –?"

"No," Duncan says sharply and almost instantly. His voice lightens as he adds, "It was likely her imagination. Do not worry about it, Kaven."

Imagination? Kaven could probably pass it off as that. But why not have a quick search to make sure? All they would find are what Kaven had found – snow, Sarah's footprints, trees, rocks, the unexpected name (if it hadn't been covered by snowfall), and more snow.

And then it echoes in his mind. That word. That powerful, heavy name. The loner in the snow. He recognized it immediately, of course. He knows it is whispered in the dark corners of the world, he knows it forever lives but never comes out of the dark. He know the sheer unlikeliness of this hound from the past appearing so spontaneously.

What _had_ it been doing there?

"Duncan...I guess you should know this, too. It's – well, it's the strangest thing. A name suddenly appeared by the place I picked Sarah up."

"Oh?" The response comes easily. It's far too…loaded.

And suddenly Kaven wonders if Duncan had something to do with it. The village chief didn't get the job from a relatively young age for nothing – Trefor once said that Duncan supposedly knows everything that goes in and around Tir Chonaill, including the time Trefor had dressed up as a girl, snuck into the Healer's house, and tried to leave Dilys chocolates. Why Trefor had to cross-dress, Kaven didn't want to know, but the guard had been wondering how Duncan knew.

As if confirming his thoughts, Duncan quickly says, "My advice, Kaven, is to forget you've ever seen this name. To attempt to search for this man, and what he sought, is enough to drive anyone to madness. He will always be remembered a hero, his legend will forever live on, but fate – _his_ fate, especially – is cruel."

"So you do know something." And he is hiding something. And implicitly, Duncan pretty much admitted the bear existed. But what the heck did it have to do with one another?

Some things start licking at Kaven's guts. Curiosity is one of them. Anticipation is another. Excitement is a third.

Sarah found nothing valuable. The name she had read is absolute gibberish, likely to lead to a dead-end advertisement for a chocolate house in the desert. On the other hand, turn that name one hundred eighty degrees – and suddenly, Kaven has in his hands a possible new trail for a twenty-five year old mystery, loads of fame among the way, and most important of all, the truth to an unclear history.

To Kaven, especially at this moment, truth is the absolute.

"Sorry, Duncan," Kaven says, giving a wicked grin. "This is just too interesting to pass up. So I hope you don't mind, when I say, tell me what _you _know –

"About Tarlach."

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Five – <strong>

_The First Missing Warrior_

* * *

><p>"Tarlach?" the blond librarian adjusts his glasses as he blinks at Kaven. "Well, yes, I've heard that legend before, but why are you asking <em>me<em>?"

"Because Lassar redirected me to you, and Duncan redirected me to her, and if he thinks Lassar thinks you know something and you know what to tell me I should be asking you," Kaven grumbles, setting his down a money bag decently heavy from a good day's selling to Glenis, Dunbarton's food merchant. Today, he had come to Dunbarton by himself; Sarah and Cyntia were still back in Tir Chonaill, working on the last batches of their farms. It serves his purpose well, granting him a private audience with the city's school's librarian.

"So Duncan indirectly recommended me? I'm very much honoured." Stewart smiles as he closes his book, setting it lightly on the table he and Kaven are conversing by. "But what specifically did you want to know, and what do you already know about the three missing warriors?"

"I'm not sure," the brunet admits, landing heavily on an empty chair. "How he knew what I've seen is one, but you probably don't know the answer to _that_. I'm more interested in what he knew about the bear, and what it might have done with the name "Tarlach", but he didn't budge, even after I tried to outwit him for a few hours."

"You? 'Outwit' him?" Stewart laughs softly. "I doubt that, Kaven. Remember, he's one of the veterans from the Second War of Mag Tuireadh. Age fifteen, and he rose to the rank of lieutenant-major in the four months until the end of the battle! With all due respect for your intelligence, no mere boy can challenge his resolve. It was foolish to think so."

"I'm not a boy anymore. My eighteenth birthday was fourteen months ago. And anyways, what's all that about Duncan? I never heard it from him."

"Well, he doesn't like to talk about it. Understandable, considering his childhood friend..." Stewart coughs. "Sorry, he wouldn't like me spreading rumours. Forget you heard that."

"Yes, I should probably forget about his childhood friend, who, judging from your tone of voice, betrayed him heavily during or after the war. What else is new?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," the librarian replies idly. "But I thought you were here because you wanted to learn about Tarlach?"

"I didn't cross Dugald Isle with Tracy hounding me and trying to show off his acting skills, which sucked by the way –" after all, all he could do was to act like he is dead, which probably was more practice from being noticed by bears rather than actual acting skills – "and straight into Dunbarton where Aeira keeps throwing book catalogues at me _again_ –" what with damn Sarah nearly draining Kaven and Cyntia's budgets the last time all three stopped in Dunbaarton (before dumping it all into Kaven's hut without reading a single word) – "for nothing, you know. So just get on with it."

"Well, all right..." Stewart gives another little cough. "Let's recap what you should already know. The three missing warriors are shrouded in mystery and rumours, even though their legend is relatively young. Tarlach, the one you ask about, left almost no physical presence in this world before his name became common – no one's even sure where he learned magic. Mari apparently had once lived in your village for ten years, Kaven, though that was many years ago, before _I_ was born, if this is true, but again, no one really knows – the only source we have for Mari is your local weapons instructor who unfortunately has a bad habit of alcoholism."

Ranald, Kaven internally groans. He picks it up hurriedly, more for covering the embarrassing possibility of Stewart explaining exactly why his neighbour's nights are a legend spread even as far as Tara. "The last warrior is Ruairi, right? He's the only one who can be confirmed to have lived – he's the elder brother of the current lord of Emain Macha, and pretty much the entire city can vouch for his existence."

"Even so, his birth, his life, and even his name are missing from the royal records. It's very odd, indeed. As well, the quest they have gone on is even more absurd than the missing pieces of their life: an expedition to discover and bring down Tir Na Nog, the land of paradise, into our world, Erinn. I believe you know the details of that particular one –"

"Not all."

"Well, you can order a copy from Aeira later if you want it. The title is _The Land of Eternity, Tir Na Nog_ by Lesley. The legend of the three warriors is that all of them banded together for that final goal and searched across all of Erinn, but there came a day when none of the warriors were seen again. I don't know who initially noticed, but soon there were stories flying everywhere, like a wildfire running through trails of oil. Although some people attempted to find them, no traces of the three were ever discovered. Eventually, though the debate about Tir Na Nog became renewed again, with fierce arguments on each side, the fable of the three warriors died down, just like all trends do."

Steward takes a gulp of his tea, his story evidently finished. Kaven thinks for a while. "So I guess they searched everything that had a connection with Ruairi, since he's the most important..."

"That's right."

"Nobles," Kaven quietly mutters. _Conceited as always_. In a louder voice, he asks, "What about Mari?"

"She was a little harder to research. Ranald tried to prove her existence many times. If I recall correctly there was an occasion where he asked Lassar to duplicate his memory. You should probably know that kind of magic is fairly advanced, and Lassar, for all her skills, couldn't quite succeed."

At least, Kaven notes, Steward says it with a humbleness that doesn't suggest _he_ could've done it right.

"However, from the faulty memory, they _have_ managed to see what 'Mari' looked like, at least from Ranald's perspective. Duncan's name was apparently also mentioned in the memory, but he denies knowing anything about her."

"Her? Mari is a girl?"

"Was it hard to tell? Mari and Mary sounds fairly similar."

Kaven grunts in annoyance. "How about Tarlach? You said he left almost nothing. What little _did_ he leave behind? And what does he have in connection to a brown bear?"

"He left nothing more than a gravestone and the body of his deceased sister. On the tomb marker was Tarlach's last name, which was the only reason they knew she was his sister..." Stewart winces. "A few weeks after that, her body was stolen, and the gravestone destroyed."

Kaven swears. Damn graverobbers "And the bear?"

"Nothing comes to my mind. I'm afraid I won't be much of a lead there. Though, why do you care, Kaven? Why do you want to know about Tarlach?"

"Well –" Kaven hesitates for a moment. Why _did_ he care? It doesn't affect him in any way, after all. "Tarlach" is simply a word written on the ground by either a human or a magical, sparkly brown bear that only Sarah had met. And it's not like Sarah has any respect from him.

It...searching for this "Tarlach"... it feels right, pursuing this mysterious figure. That is the closest answer he can manage.

Which means he doesn't have a reason at all.

Sometimes he just hates his brain and how it disregards certain logic. Other times it's a terribly comfortable trait, of course, but he chooses to ignore this fact again.

_The truth. Oh yes, the truth. That's what I'm after…and I want it really badly._

"I'm just curious about the truth about all this. And...actually, now I think about it, I'm pretty sure I saw that name before. I think he was Mores' student." Kaven feels a little bad about lying to Stewart, but no way in hell is he going to damage his slightly beanheaded pride of operating on logic. Besides which, this blatant fib might stir up enough dissonance to provide some more information, whether from Steward himself or one of his academic collegues.

Stewart raises his eyebrows. "Indeed? I was unaware Mores took pupils..."

"He did," Kaven casually mumbles, hoping Stewart won't see through the lie. He casually and carefully grabs the tea provided to him, gulping a mouthful of the cooled drink –

"So, who's Uoplipl?"

– Which he promptly spits out, and the sailing liquid slows and freezes into ice before being flung out of an open window by themselves, leaving a hacking Kaven and a waiting Stewart.

"Alright," Kaven gasps, "how much did you leave out?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Duncan and Sarah's the only ones that know about 'Uoplipl'. Duncan must have told you about that, didn't he? Which means this entire conversation was scripted. So what are you not telling me?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

For a moment – Kaven isn't sure what, his seemingly obsessive curiosity with Tarlach or his real personality – his anger flares violently. They did are playing with him. They are withholding important knowledge.

_They are treating me as they treat a _child_._

For one moment, Kaven considers showing them exactly why he is not a child.

The teacup looks too place a good to start.

And then Kaven slams down the door to that train of thought as he forces a smile – a grim one, but a smile – onto his face to cover up this other moment of rebellious thought. "Uoplipl is Tarlach upside down, if you really wanted to know. Sarah was with me when I saw the word, and I guess she didn't realize it was upside down, because she read it straight off." Kaven grabs his gathering knife and, ignoring Stewart's suddenly scandalized look, starts carving into the table, spelling out "Tarlach". "If you look at it upside down, this big T looks like a big L if smudged a bit, the 'a's into 'p's, and so on." Suddenly a new thought occurs to him as he stares at his own writing. "Wait, the bear – I mean, whoever wrote that wrote the small 'a's with it as a double-story lower case, not single-story. Why?"

"Is there a difference to how it's written?"

"The single-story is just way more convenient. I don't need any other reason than that." Kaven frowns. "Do the royal family – or any noble, for that matter – get taught to write this formal?"

"You'd have to ask them themselves, but I believe so."

"So…that means someone with formal education gave me this. Maybe I can contact him, or her. Heck, why not even the original warriors directly?"

"Kaven, you should know as much as I do that the owls are always the first to be sent out if someone goes missing. If they could not find the three warriors before, I very much doubt they can help you now."

"Can't we at least try? Times change."

"Yes, but dead people don't. You can try, you can even borrow my owl if you want, but it's not going to work."

Even as the young librarian spoke, a tawny burrowing owl flied into the room from a signal Kaven must've missed. The owl settles upon an unlighted candle in the library with a hoot, and starts preening its feathers slowly.

"I'm not sure if you've met, but Air, this is Kaven, and Kaven, this is Air." Stewart quickly traces something into the air, to the owl's direction, what Kaven realizes is his own name; it is a procedure he had first seen only a month ago, when Sarah had to be brought to the elder's house. It is a way to introduce the owls to new direct recipients, or at least that's what Duncan told Kaven. "Well, I'll leave you at that." Stewart immediately goes back to the book he had been reading before Kaven had entered the Dunbarton School.

"Um...hi."

The owl only wheezes out a pellet into a small cup that is next to the candle.

Kaven wrinkles his nose, and snags a piece of paper and a quill from a wooden bin on the table, dipping the quill into a cup of ink conveniently placed beside it, and writes a short letter.

"Dear Tarlach, Where are you? –Kaven"

And then he gives it to the owl. "Um, can you send this to the recipient? Thanks."

The owl looks at the slip of paper for a moment, and deftly folds it with its talon. It quickly grabs the letter and takes flight. For a moment, as na_ï_ve it is, Kaven feels hopeful that he has succeeded – until the owl simply drops the piece of paper on his face and settles down again.

"What the – ugh." Irritated, Kaven scratches out the "Tarlach" and replaces it with "Mari", before giving it back to the owl. Again, Air does the exact same thing, except this time he manages to score the ball into the man's mouth.

Promptly spitting it out onto the floor, he tries again with Ruairi, which also does not work, and then he tries "Three Legendary Warriors" which apparently was not even worth leaving the table for, as the owl swallows it whole. The next three letters he brainstorms are addressed to each of the three's families, though this still goes nowhere. Finally he tries the name of Ruairi's younger brother, Rian, and the owl finally takes flight out of the window. Kaven waits for fifteen minutes, a time long enough for Stewart to glance up questioningly, except when the owl finally comes back all it carries is a royal order from the minister of Emain Macha, Esras, warning him that further harassment of the Lord would create an arrest warrant and an execution order against him.

Kaven rubs his head. "Not the best idea I had then," he admits.

"Well, I did tell you people have tried. They all tried to contact every relative or friends the three warriors might have had, with no success. Everyone with some sense, including me, left it at that."

"There's no need to rub it in, Stewart." Kaven tries to think harder. There had to be something they missed. Just a tiny detail, an improper wording, perhaps, that they did not notice.

Kaven forced himself to think over Stewart's words. "Well, I did tell you people have tried. They all tried to contact every relative or friends the three warriors might have had, with no success. Everyone with some sense, including me, left it at that." "...all tried to contact every relative or friends the three warriors might have had, with no..." "...every relative or friends..."

"Did they only try living people?"

Stewart glances up in surprise. "No, they tried animals too. Pets, like Ruairi's personal owl."

"He had his own owl?"

"Consider Ruairi's life as a successor of a lord, Kaven. Of course he did. But they couldn't find his owl either, so you're stuck there."

Kaven shuts his eyes and leans back on his chair. So they tried to look for animals too, huh? Maybe there was something they still haven't considered. They tried pets, they tried friends, they tried family...

His eyes snap back open. "Have they tried personal possessions?"

Stewart looks at him for a moment and he is afraid he uttered something a little stupid. But then Stewart replies, "I actually don't think so. I don't remember anything about it, and really, owls are only trained to find people, not items. But I still see the merit in trying it and seeing if it works."

Kaven grabs his quill eagerly and scribbles a quick instruction another piece of paper, while the librarian actually leans forward and watches him this time. Kaven writes, "Dear Tarlach's Item(s), Can you come over here? I'll have the owl carry you back. –Kaven" and shows it to the bird.

It stares at it for a moment before taking flight again, exiting out of the window. Kaven follows its path out the window, and then he realizes the reddishness of the sky outside and curses quietly. "I don't think I can make it back before midnight tonight. Especially not with a heavy money bag."

"Well then, allow me." Stewart takes the quill Kaven has used and mutters an incantation illegible to the brunet, which turns the feather rose red. "This'll take you straight back to Tir Chonaill. Exactly where, I can't say, I'm not good enough to pinpoint one spot yet."

"I gotta learn that," Kaven breathes, taking the feather. How convenient would that be, if transportation magic eased his way into other cities?

"You can't. You're smart, but you haven't even learned the basic Bolt magics yet. Try again after fifteen years of study. Ten if you're better than I thought."

Kaven grunts, disappointed, and Stewart goes back to his book.

Five minutes pass. Ten minutes. Twenty. By this time Kaven is bored out of his mind and merely passing the time by counting the number of books in Stewart's personal study. When he reaches four hundred and eighty five, he can only marvel at how many more must be in the actual library. At the point when the thirty minutes point passes, he is finally considering buying a membership card just to grab and read a book when Air finally flies back into the room, sending the package it is carrying sailing and hitting too close to his eye for his comfort. He manages to catch the item before it hits the floor, and when he glances back up, Stewart is staring at his hands curiously and the owl is already gone from the room.

"This had better not be a prank," he mutters, and glances down at the object. It isn't wrapped, and Kaven immediately sees it is a plain oval locket. A reflective yellow coloured chain is attached through the hoop at the top, though Kaven doubts by its weight that the chain is entirely solid gold. Possibly, it's copper or brass.

Kaven opens the locket itself and is greeted with a picture of a girl and a boy. The girl, on the left, is academic-looking with brown hair and a formal dress, much more formal than even the one Sarah had shown up in. On the left is a younger blond boy with glasses and a bow tie, who is looking somewhat uncomfortable in the drawing. The girl's arms are hugging the boy's shoulder, indicating they are – or were – quite close.

"So if this is Tarlach's item, I guess that's his sister," Kaven finally mutters. "Doesn't tell us any more about them though. Another dead end."

"Not necessarily. You probably won't recognize it right off the bat, but it's a memorial item. Someone infused someone's memory into it."

Kaven's heart starts beating faster. "For real? Then we'd get to see their memories?" He hold the locket out, staring at it as if it is about to suck them into its world immediately.

"Yes, but you'll have to connect it to an outlet of erg first. Judging by the patterns of its flow from the locket, I'd think the dungeon you need to offer it to is either Alby or Ciar." Stewart frowns, and adjusts his glasses. "Actually, I think it's Alby. Ciar doesn't have a seventh strand."

"Whatever." Kaven stands up excitedly, accidentally knocking over the chair, and ignoring it. This is, hands down, a probably magnificent discovery he had just unleashed. He might be _so _close to uncovering a new detail about the missing mage..."You coming to see this with me?"

"And travel to Tir Chonaill while doing so? I'm sorry, Kaven, but I have to tend to my library. Eavan pays me a commission to do so, and if I skip this on her, she can fine me for more than most of my books are worth. And besides, I've a lecture to give _and_ a meeting to attend tomorrow. No, I'll spread your discovery, but you can watch the memory yourself, Kaven. You deserve the honour, I suppose."

"Okay. Okay." Kaven nearly runs for the door, but hastily rights the chair first. "I'll come back and tell you tomorrow!" he calls over his shoulder as he exits, flying down the stairs with nary a glance back.

He bursts out of the library doors into Dunbarton sunset sky, a sight that he sometimes stops to marvel at. Today isn't the time, though. Today, he has to run, to hurry back to Tir Chonaill, and not glance at the orange-tinted stone buildings or the fields up north or the woods in Dugald –

Yes! That's right, Stewart's feather! He can use it to go back to Tir Chonaill immediately! Hastily skidding to a halt when he arrives on main street, he brings it out from a pocket he doesn't remember putting it in and shakes it, though he's not sure he activated it right.

Something makes him look up.

…Something **dark**.

Warriors are nothing new. Kaven had been around many – Seumas, Ranald, Duncan. But the peculiar, intense feeling from the empty eyes makes him twitch uncomfortably, while the burning hatred from the same eyes nearly sets him ablaze. Everything about the person he suddenly sees, standing in front of him, screams assassin.

And a good one.

The miniscule time it takes for this man to raise his hand is the moment Kaven confirms his notion with the black cloak billowing at his feet and the face mask that swallows his lower face, like a shade slipping through the splits of sunlight. Even while a fireball is summoned, much bigger than the roaring bonfire Kaven and Cyntia sometimes made, all that Kaven is able to think is just how much the image of a silent killer synchronizes with this sudden man. The only thing that detracts from this perfect image is the lighter, barely seen outline on his mask that draws a cat's comical mouth.

Cat-mouth? Kaven thinks.

And _then_ the feather glows, creating a drop in Kaven's stomach as he realizes he has relocated somewhere else.

Though, when Kaven realizes exactly where he is, the drop in his stomach worsens further. When Stewart said he can't pinpoint exactly where the feather will end up, he wasn't lying.

The good news is, he can recognize the interior of Alby dungeon and the goddess statue in it.

The bad news is, he's several feet above the air with a stunned-looking Cyntia and Sarah right underneath him.

He inevitably plummets.

Luckily, she catches him, though he feels a severe annoyance at the fact that _she_'s the one catching _him_, not _him_ catching _her_, as a gentleman should've done. This sexist thought is driven immediately from his mind when he notices the locket slipping from his fingers. By the time he reacts, the locket is halfway down to its trip on the floor, which also happens to be the altar to the Goddess.

Half a second away from entering Tarlach's memory, Kaven manages out an "Ah, dammit."


	6. In Memory Of

**_A/N Well... Nearly a month since the last update. Wow, I'm lagging._**

**_I've...also noticed there was a rather inexcusable amount of errors in chapters two to five that I've made while revising sentences. Some of the of the words from previous sentences weren't deleted, which would explain the confusion you may have seen if you read this far.  
><em>**

**_Special thanks to Miheart Sundae for the first review!_**

******Disclaimer:** **Mabinogi belongs to Nexon and devCAT. I own absolutely nothing in relation to it, except for the characters I thought up.******

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><p>It's just so damn <em>tiring <em>today.

Her shoes are _still_ stinking of sheep poop from three days ago. She had the misfortune to get tangled in a thorn bush a few hours ago. Of course, there was that _duel_ where Kaven had the balls to _win_ when he never had the guts to ever ask her out after various _pathetic_ attempts at flirting! She even goddamned _kissed_ him, but apparently her consolation prize is trivial compared to his stupid dislike of Sarah!

Ten years is how long Cyntia and Kaven lived together. She would have thought that that would be enough time for a damn boy to get to know a girl, start to like a girl, and actually work to date the girl. But Kaven stubbornly retained the hormone levels of a broken table – dead, and useless.

As if giving presents each Valentine's Day meant she had wanted to kill time and money!

As if stealing his coat and sleeping with it mean she is an irritation to be dealt with!

As if her consistently giving him kisses when he looked tired, when he looked uncomfortable, when he looked happy, means she should still be left in the category of "friend"!

For the life of her, she just couldn't figure out _how_ Kaven's head was screwed up. Nikky had said he might have been hit on the head too hard as a child, which is too simple an explanation for her. Alissa had suggested he's just a dumbass when it counts, which Cyntia can heartily agree with, but at the same time still sounded an incomplete explanation. Caitin had claimed Kaven only saw her as a sister, but she doesn't exactly get how that would be a problem; in her books, they would just be acting out Lanier's classic _Children of the Dollangangers_, which was a really good production anyways so instead of it being detrimental, she should actually have been romantically _favoured_ if she is seen as a sister!

Then again, there are more than a few reasons that Bebhinn, the bubbly banker, calls Kaven "Not marriage material".

For example, a few hours ago, when she finally finished her share of part-time jobs for the day, not only did she find out Kaven hadn't arrived from Dunbarton yet, but, rather unpleasantly, she also she found that they are all out of mana herbs. There are no reasons for Sarah to have taken them; the only other person to know where they are placed is Kaven. Thus, she found herself with a deep scowl fixed on her face.

Did he go and _take_ them? Is that why it's missing?

Did he take them to _sell_ them? Is that why he's so late today?

And did the bastard go and sell something that was a _gift_ _from_ _Duncan_?

If he's not careful, when Kaven finally gets his lazy butt back home, he _might_ find himself having his head ripped off, stuck on a spear, and hurled it into Adelia river.

…Then again, if that happened she won't be able to bathe in it anymore. Maybe just into the wheat fields.

But then Sarah would find it...

Oh, fine! She'll just slap him and forgive him after he gives her her birthday present early.

But _only_ after that.

And it better be a _damn_ good present!

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><p><strong>Chapter Six – <strong>

_In Memory Of_

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><p>"Cyntia?" The small voice breaks her inner rant and she turns to face her sister, the scowl already replaced by a smile.<p>

"Yeah? What is it?"

"Where are we going?"

At the moment they were just arriving in the town square from the west side. A nearby signpost proclaims, "WELCOME TO THE FARMER'S MARKET EXHIBIT!" even though it is already a few weeks since the end of the event. Out of habit, Cyntia gives it a fluid blow; her knuckles no longer hurt, but still nothing falls out.

She answers Sarah with, "Alby Dungeon. And have we taken you there yet?"

"I recognize this path from yesterday, when Kaven had to fetch something for Duncan."

Cyntia grins. "Ah. That." Suffice to say she is already feeling better now that she knew Kaven hadn't been able to laze the whole day through.

"Um, Cyntia? Why are we going to the dungeon?"

Cyntia smirks again. "It's a see~ cret~" she sings, sounding admittedly childish even to herself.

"Okay. Can you tell me about the dungeon?"

"Which part?"

The child thinks for a moment longer before she replies, "How was it made?"

History. Not her specialty, but being around Kaven gave her a good resource to absorb from. It helps that she got Kaven to buy those volumes of fables from Aeira, the nice bookseller from Dunbarton, the last time they all went to export produce in the town of stones. One of the books is called _The Goddess Who Turned into Stone_, and is fuller of information than a beehive is full of honey.

"In the beginning, there only used to be one dungeon, which was also called a Rath. A Rath is a fortress made in the first war of Mag Tuireadh to protect humans from the Fomors." Cyntia frowns. "Have we told you about the First War of Mag Tuireadh yet?"

"Kaven told me a little about the second. It was mostly about Mores the Druid, though."

"Mm. Well, you can imagine that the first war was just as bad, if not worse, than the second. Now, this Rath that was built was used as a hideout and a hospital for the soldiers fighting in the war. God-King Nuadha himself had to use it, when he lost his arm. But, during the course of the war, Fomors had managed to break its defences and put in a portal – a kind of a door – from their home world. The moment the tired king escaped to the Rath was the moment they had attacked it from the inside."

"Why do Fomors want to kill the humans?"

"Only a Fomor would know," Cyntia easily replies. "I'm not one, though, so I can't tell you why. All I can say is that if you ever see one – or creatures controlled by one – either run away, or kill it." Cyntia frowned and patted Sarah's head comfortingly. "Personally, I would tell you it's better to run away. Okay, Sarah?" And with that, she lifts the girl as smoothly as a seal gliding across water, and sets her on her shoulder.

The action draws a slight squeak. "Hey! I'm not two years old!"

"Aww, my little Sarah's all mad now!" Cyntia's grin grows bigger. "Aren't you just glad to spend time with your mommy?"

A slight squirm is all she gets in response, which Cyntia takes for confirmation.

"Anyways, back to the war – when the Fomors attacked, it looked like the hurt humans were losing. Nuadha fought bravely, but he just lost an arm and was too weak to help much. That was when Morrighan, the goddess of revenge, appeared to fight against the Fomors. But even she wasn't enough to take all of them out at once, so in the end, she made a big choice.

"She sacrificed herself to cut off the original portal to Rath. She also cursed the Rath with magic to shift the fortress' paths constantly. That let the Fomors left become confused and trapped, while the humans escaped easily. The grateful people erected her statue on the site of the Rath, and placed others all over Erinn to remember her sacrifice."

Sarah mulls over this for a few moments. She then states matter-of-factly, "Cyntia…you smell like sheep poop."

Cyntia immediately pouts. "Oh, so that's how it is! Well, you can just walk by yourself now!" she says.

But then Sarah tugs Cyntia's black hair. "No, wait, I want to stay. Please don't leave me."

The girl immediately smiles again. "That's my little Sarah!" she exclaims, and instead of the originally planned forceful removal she hugs the little girl fiercely, while the child squirms in apparent discomfort.

Though, she does take a moment to take whiff of her clothes when she thinks Sarah isn't paying attention. She hates to admit it, but there's no worse turn-off than nature's royal leftovers clinging to a girl's skirt, and that might partially explain Kaven's apparent lack of hormones.

Breaking into her thoughts, Sarah says, "Were the Fomors killed?"

A very big mental rewind later, Cyntia remembers their original topic. "The ones trapped inside? No. It was too much work to go and exterminate every last one. That's why, these days, there's colonies of Fomors and Fomor-controlled beasts residing in every dungeon, behind every locked door. Though, some of them did grow too strong for individual adventurers to handle…"

Sarah doesn't respond immediately, so Cyntia takes that time to wave casually to Trefor the guard, who shiftily waves back and moves a hand to his naval as if he has an upset stomach. Whether he does or not, Cyntia isn't sure, but at least that gives him a legitimate excuse to visit Dilys, his long time crush.

"You said," Sarah started, "that there's only one Rath, right? So why are there two dungeons? Alby Dungeon and Ciar Dungeon are too far away to be a part of one building."

"That's really good reasoning, Sarah!" Cyntia praises. "You're right, there was only one Rath. But, there are thirteen dungeons in the continent of Uladh! In fact, the original Rath was way farther south – around where Dungeon called Peaca is, I think. Neither Alby nor Ciar was a part of the original Rath, and they got their dungeon status in a slightly different way.

"One day, someone had accidently discovered a surprise; if an item is dropped by the Goddess' statue, then one could be transported to the remnant of the Rath. Subsequently – erm, after that – the goddess statues that were placed all over Erinn were found to have the same power; and so dungeons were born."

"But why do people want to go into dungeons?"

Cyntia grins. "Some people like me just go in to train. But most people lead expeditions because over the years, the Fomors accumulated – er, found and kept – a lot of interesting treasures. Some arrows and bolts here, some plants and food there, but also a lot of gold coins and even priceless jewels! If there's anything a Fomor can do right, it's to always collect whatever valuables they find, and with the number of years they lived in these Raths, undisturbed…"

"That's why we're going to the dungeon, then? To get some jewels, or money, or food, or…?" And then realization seems to dawn on Sarah's face. "Oh."

"Yup, you guessed it. Since we're missing some mana herbs, we had to come here to get some more. This is the only place I know that has some patches growing."

Cyntia nearly squeals like the girl she can be at the cute grimace on the auburn girl's face. "But it's so icky!"

"Would you prefer those or your nightmares?" And then the two enter the little cave peeking through the mountainside, emerging in a cavern that is unnaturally lighted. She lets Sarah disembark; the little girl gives her an affectionate, but perhaps pleading, kiss on the cheeks as she does so. Cyntia giggles, says "Thanks," and pecks her back on her forehead, before straightening back up and looking around the brightly lit room.

As much as Cyntia would like to live her life off of leading expeditions into these dungeons, it's a simple fact that some of the Fomors can kill her with a glare. One life is all she gets, unless she counts a life of slavery, which is probably the only option available to her if by some miracle the Fomors doesn't decide to kill or eat or do both to her. The dungeons she _can_ clear are the ones with very little material goods placed inside it – not only lacking food to the point of Fomorian famine (which is partly the reason why she can clear them in the first place), but also very little valuables stashed in the treasure chests.

The competition's just too fierce, anyways. Even now, she is betting on a hope that no other adventurer thought to harvest the mana herbs today, yet. As much potential there is for riches, she might find herself combing through the same dungeon several times to find enough gold to actually buy anything more expensive than page 10 of _Book of Fireball_.

Ultimately, the result is, she's stuck tending Tir Chonaill's only farm.

Of course, she can always drop by if fighting Kaven becomes repetitive, or if she wants some extra gold, or if she wants miscellaneous items like the mana herbs that they've apparently already run out of.

"Ready to go?" Cyntia asks Sarah, a hand already about to pull out her trusty sickle. The little girl nods, so Cyntia leads her to the planted goddess statue.

She steps on the raised altar with Sarah…

Just in time for Kaven to suddenly pop out and resignedly fall to her.

In the second she has to think before an unexpected impact, she has to admit that this is the last thing she expected in a lazy town like Tir Chonaill.

* * *

><p>The fire cackles laughingly, a peaceful scene from the fighting she just participated in. it hadn't been much of an exercise, but she still likes to take a break.<p>

"A test. You're here to take a test."

Then again, there are still dweebs like _him_ to deal with.

Mari glances up at the disbelieving face of the idiot – oh, sorry, _Ruairi_. "Yeah, that's right! Stop being all high and mighty!"

"I'm not!" he protests. "It's just...well...isn't it kinda dangerous for a little girl? I mean, _I_ trained in Emain Macha for the last few years, Tarlach was apprenticed to Mores for the first half of his life, and we both survived in the wild for a few months, but you –"

"I learned from Ranald. Do you still think I shouldn't fight?"

"Um...yeah?"

Mari angrily notches an arrow.

"Wait, Mari," the third member of the party said, moving slightly and adjusting the neck of his orange-red robe so that it let more air through. His face is clam, but Mari can hear a lot of mirth in his voice. "We haven't completed this trip, so you shouldn't completely unleash your frustration on Ruairi yet."

"Yet?" the auburn haired warrior squeaks.

Mari puts her special bow, a birthday present from her grandfather Duncan, to rest again. Her pinkish hair gets in her eyes, so she takes off the loose blue wool threading her hair, retying her ponytail as she speaks. "But he's such a wimp! The jerko nearly wet his pants just from seeing the spiders. And they're only knee high! He's only going to trip up on our way through!"

"Hey, we just got here after being swamped by these endless waves of wolves..." Mari tunes the words out, untying her thread and trying again, this time attempting to take in more of the bangs that irritates her eyes and frames her cheeks. Each try stubbornly resists bending to her will, and in frustration she gives up just when Ruairi says, "...sure you're from around here?"

It takes a moment for Mari to realize he is talking to her, and when she does, she gives him an annoyed glare. "I've been around for a long time, remember? Of course I know everything that goes on here. That includes the spiders and the goblins and _yes_,the wolves." Mari frowns. More quietly, she adds, "But not my parents. I wish I could remember them."

"Huh? What happened to 'em?"

"I don't know. Duncan said he'll tell me when I'm strong. But he never said if they're still alive."

"Doesn't that mean they're already gone when you're a kid?"

Mari snaps, "What would _you_ know?"

Ruairi winces.

"I just don't know. Sometimes I think they've been gone for all ten years. Other times I can just feel their faces when I close my eyes…and then they get lighter and clearer and I'm looking and squinting…and then _poof_." Mari sighs. "And I feel like there's a hole in my memory. Actually, I feel like there're lots of holes in my memory – like my birthday."

This causes the blond's eyes to move to her. "Amnesia? However, where did you receive such…?"

The archer scratches her ponytail nervously; it is starting to itch again. "I don't know. It's been around for a pretty long time. At least as long as I lived. The one first thing I remember not renemder – renemebering –" Mari winces at the stumbles. "_Remembering _is the faces of the two people who brought me back to my house when I was young…well, if I'm remembering what I'm not renenbering right."

Tarlach is silent for a moment. A moment later, he says, "Would this be something you are interested in finding out?"

"Can you?"

"I do not know, but I can try and search for abnormalities with mana eyes."

Mari has no idea what that is, but nods anyways. No surprise she trusts him; he's so much nicer than that blabbering idiot Ruairi!

A fuzzy feeling, by no means uncomfortable or unpleasant, washes over her – this must be the sign that he's looking for something with magic. A moment later, he speaks up. "I believe your memories been sealed by magic, as I detect traces of erg swirling peculiarly around your head – it is very similar to how my master does his own memory binding spells. I do not think I can remove it without closer inspection and a heavy amount of research, however – although, that _is_ assuming you wish to remove it."

"Well...if you can't do it, I'll wait. I do want it gone though."

Tarlach chuckles handsomely. "Well, sometimes _I_ think memory loss is fairly convenient, particularly on the painful memories."

Ruairi butts in. "Like your sister that got offed by a Fomor?"

Mari's hand immediately darts to a pocket of her Archeress School Wear for a dagger, except when she finds empty air she remembers she had to surrender it to Ranald before she took the test. Instead she uses her third-best weapon: a cold scowl. "Ruairi! Watch your rudeness!"

"It is all right," Tarlach graciously interrupts, "that is the truth. I will miss her, but I have already accepted her death."

"Was she pretty?" Mari asks.

Tarlach takes something out of his pocket. A moment later Mari realizes it is a locket. He flips open the cover and Mari, taking it as an invitation, peeks inside. She gasps at the sight…and, with a slight blush, realizes she feels a little jealous. "Wow! She's _this_ beautiful?"

"Even more than the portrait can show," Tarlach says fondly, putting the locket back in his robe's pocket. "She's the best sister I could have had. It is for her memory that I am searching for Tir Na Nog along with Ruairi."

"Ha! And when that time rolls around, I'll be powerful enough to trash all the monster by myself!"

"Brute," Mari mutters.

* * *

><p>She will never admit it, but she <em>is<em> holding back. The bow her grandfather had gifted her is so powerful she could take out everything in the room in less than five seconds, but she's pretty curious about seeing her teammates' prowesses, too.

Tarlach, as expected, is a magnificent magic user. His manner, his glasses, his robe, and the lack of weapons all pointed to that, and he uses magic as effectively as Ranald's red-haired colleague. His Lightning Bolt already took out lots of monsters at once, and the only thing Mari could say when she sees his one transformation into a snarling brown bear is "Awesome!" He leads the team's efforts flawlessly, directing them to take on an entire mob, but also letting her cover him exactly when it's needed (though that only happened once when Ruairi stubbed his toe on a treasure chest).

Mari has to admit Ruairi is almost as powerful, though. With his sword, he took out all the spiders and bats and rats accurately and with way too much power behind them. The times that he is hit is few and far in between, and even when it occurs more often than not he'd end up crushing the poor bat's face in his palms, and even on the _very_ few chances a rat actually tried to bite him or a spider got on his torso all they met were the rock-hard orange and expensive-looking armour he wore. He's as good a support to Tarlach as Mari herself is, though that didn't lessen her impression of him as an absolute musclehead. (Mari seethes at him. How dare he be two times taller than she is! She's only about ten years younger!)

Ranald had taught her just the word for this: overkill. With their combination, monsters aren't dangers or even obstacles anymore. They could walk wherever they want, and walk out scratch-free. The world can finally clear out the Peaca dungeon, or expand the maps even farther inland, beyond Tara! They could even search for the uncharted continent Tarlach is so eager to find, so mind-bogglingly far to the east of Uladh!

Mari's head feels dizzy with all the possibilities. So this is what it feels like to have an adventure. So this is what's so exciting beyond this town of Tir Chonaill. So this is why Tarlach (and Ruairi) have left their homes to brave the unknown – because really, how much more enticing can anything be, more than _this_?

And before she knows it, they have already barraged through most of the dungeon. After Mari snitches the last key tied around the tail of a rat (that happens to now sport an arrow through its head), she inserts it into the next locked door and yanks/turns it open, stepping back with a cheerful "Get ready!" as the internal mechanisms (built by Fomors?) quickly lift the door up.

Perhaps the most obvious thing in the room is the hulking, giant mass of the spider taller than Tarlach resting in a corner of the big room, attended by its smaller cousins. Ruairi gasps, and Mari gladly watches him freak out to her expectations. Tarlach, of course, maintains his cool expression, staring at the nest intently. Mari likes it when he does this; it means he's thinking, and when he thinks, he always comes up with an exceptional plan. Now should be no different.

"Ruairi will kill the enormous spider. Mari and I will attack the underlings and prevent them from interrupting Ruairi."

Mari grimaces. As much as she respects his plan and how it fits a situation best, she doesn't quite like the idea of Ruairi taking the spotlight from her. Looking at him, she is secretly pleased to see the grimace on his face as well; maybe she can force-help him on the way, just to knock him off a few self-esteem pegs.

Mari takes out her bow again, and takes careful aim while Ruairi charges in like the reckless guy he is. Tarlach does nothing but stand, though by the time Mari takes out two of the spiders in quick succession several balls of ice comes into existence around him that darts with deadly accuracy into the body of three spiders, killing them all instantly. By this time Ruairi is fighting the giant spider, and the last red spider is only just starting to move towards him. Mari gets an arrow clear in through its body.

With two clear strokes, the warrior takes out two legs and four eyes, leaving the creature bleeding to death even before Ruairi drives his longsword straight through its pincers. Mari can notice his disgusted face even with the distance between them, and she proudly revels in the fact she never feels queasy enough to show it whenever she kills an animal controlled by a Fomor.

When she and Tarlach gets close to him, just in time for the big spider to go _poof_ like all animals controlled by Fomors, he glances up to Tarlach and complains, "When the goddess popped into my dreams, this is not what I expected to be doing for her."

Tarlach only chuckles, though Mari is confused. "Goddess? What goddess?"

As Ruairi disgustedly tries to wipe the guts of the spider on the flat stone ground, Tarlach explains, "Several days ago, Ruairi received a vision from a goddess who told him that Erinn and she required his help. Apparently, she warned him that Erinn has plunged into extreme danger."

Mari glares at the armoured warrior. "Are you sure that wasn't just a romantic dream?" she asks suspiciously.

Ruairi sputters. "W-what! No! I mean, I had them before, but those are all girl I met, you know? I mean – ah, dang it, what am I saying? No! I don't – well, okay yeah, I do – but –"

"Ruairi's dream has some credibility," Tarlach interrupts while the warrior mumbles gibberish about his dreams and girls, and once Mari thought she heard him say his dream girl. She refocuses back to the druid as he explains, "As the Goddess's sacrifice severed the connection between the Fomor's world and ours, that should mean those left behind should be relatively weak, exhausted from years of surviving. However, that is clearly not the case; as Ruairi discussed earlier, the numbers of Fomors are increasing, in tandem with their power."

"So this means...?"

"It can mean two things; one, the current Fomors are getting naturally stronger. This is unlikely."

Mari didn't think she would need to question Tarlach, but that did seem a bit brief… "Why?"

"It's because the Fomors have so little to thrive off of. In these dungeons, they have very little natural resources to manipulate – for example, the only food _we_'ve seen so far are hoarded bread crumbs and cheese, which likely came from past adventurers dropping them. Some Fomors do escape, yes, and some Fomors puts influence outside the dungeons with their magic, on the wild animals, but getting food back _in _is much more difficult, since offering our Goddess an item not only places them back into a completely random location, as is the nature of these dungeons, but the act itself is a direct insult to their pride. They likely won't do so.

"As well, adventurers had been fighting Fomors for years. You can see here that the Fomors in this very dungeon are pitifully weak, yet, there were too many of them to account for in the face of ten years' worth of constantly being killed from locals with nothing to defend with, and little to nurture recovery.

"Perhaps that is the reason why only the dungeons with vegetation – Fiodh and Coill – or the dungeon with water – Rundal – or the dungeon hosting Fomors who don't quite need materials to survive – Peaca – are the ones with the stronger colonies of Fomors. But even so, it is hard to _thrive_ off of such conditions. This brings me to the second option…"

At this point Ruairi gives up trying to wipe his sword and instead sheathes it, and Mari notices him making a face at the slimy stuff that managed to get on his hand. She refocuses back to Tarlach.

"More Fomors are _entering_ these dungeons."

Mari frowned. "I thought you said that was really hard?"

"Pardon me, that was a misleading phrase. What I mean is that Fomors are entering not from _our _world, but instead the portal or portals originally made to infiltrate the first dungeon. Those are the very same ones that Goddess Morrighan had sacrificed herself to seal. If they have been ripped open, this induces the possibility that the original power that has closed the connection, the Goddess' power, is weakening.

"So Ruairi's dream really could have been her call for help."

"Which means I'm the chosen one!" the yellow-clad soldier boasts, _thunk_ing the sheath of his sword on the ground twice. "I better go and save the goddess!"

"Brat!" Mari exclaims. Overriding Ruairi's protests, she turns back to Tarlach with a big smile. "That was a bit complicated, but you know what? I don't really care about the reason. Can I come?" Another thought strikes her, and she adds, "And maybe this Goddess can restore my memories. If she can, that's another reason why I'd like to go with you, Tarlach. Can I?"

"Are you sure about this, Mari? A journey can become quite difficult. Besides, what of your friends and family? What of your teacher?"

"Pfft, I haven't talked to Malcolm in ages and Caitin can't say no to me! Duncan will understand, he used to be an adventurer himself! Ranald…" Mari grins sheepishly. "He'll probably tell me I'm not ready, but if I tell him it's for training, he shouldn't mind.

"Besides, this is an _adventure_, right? There's no way I can miss something like that! I want to try living on the open grass fields without sheep stinking it up, I want to walk through the musty floor of woodland without the sounds of chopping gnawing at my ears. I want to see the sun rising and falling without the buildings blocking the view, I want to see the stars blinking on and off without streetlight. I want to eat what _I_ can catch, kill what _I_ can hunt, use what _I_ can make. And most of all, I want to make the best friends I can have, friends I can trust, friends I can understand, friends I can laugh with – and no way that'll happen staying stuck in this town!

"So there's no way I'll ever miss being in an adventure!"

As if to complement her unusually good day, Tarlach grins, and it is an expression that lifts Mari's spirits far higher than the windmill of Tir Chonaill. "Then, I see no problems."

* * *

><p>One second later, Cyntia manages to choke out, "What the hell was <em>that<em>?" to Kaven in her arms.

Unfortunately, two seconds is all she could manage to support Kaven before losing her balance and crashing hard onto the floor – _outside_ the raised platform, Cyntia notes.

The sound of metal tinkling on the ground is what draws Cyntia back to reality, and then to a mental spasm of SUPPORTING SARAH COMES FIRST! Hastily she darts onto her feet and lunges for the gold pieces scattering around, determined to prevent them from being sacrificed to the goddess.

Except, just when she reaches for a gold piece, her hand bumps against something else. Another second later, she realizes she had grabbed Kaven's hand instead.

A jumbled mess of thoughts instantly converge into her mind, the most dominant being the one that points out how similar this situation it is to those operas she loves to watch performed whenever they show in Dunbarton – both being accidental and totally romantic.

It doesn't help that when Cyntia looks up in surprise, she meets Kaven's clear green eyes. "Hey," he says quietly, as if he knows exactly what she is thinking, as if he is in total control. Of what, she doesn't know, but Cyntia's heart suddenly hammers faster.

She likes this. She may never say it out loud, but she loves this feeling he gives her.

In that moment, she only thinks of Kaven and wonders how he can seem to have so little imperfections.

And then the other thoughts register on her mind:

1. He had condemned her to several hours of poop scoop.  
>2. He had not adequately taken care of Sarah the day before.<br>3. He had apparently lazed around in Dunbarton without her prior approval.  
>4. He had probably sold the mana herbs Duncan had given them.<p>

So she immediately thinks about what those pretty, delicate, dreamy girls in Marlowe and Lanier's various plays will never do to ruin a romantic moment, not even by accident. Reaching a quick and convenient conclusion, she executes it.

In other words, she decks him straight into the side, sending him crashing off the slightly raised altar and onto the cold, hard stone floor a few centimetres lower.

"That was for the poop scoop, you son of a b-b-" she yells, before timely remembering Sarah's presence and instead completing with, "female dog!" She turns, grinning, to a bemused Sarah. "Come on, let's collect all this," she says, gesturing to the coins that are still scattered.

As Sarah joins in, Kaven gives off a groan of pain. "Of all the welcome I could've got..."

"That's right, beeswax, get used to it!" Cyntia's mood darkens considerably as she adds, "And don't fuc-_freaking_ take what's not yours. Do you realize just how ashamed I am that I had to resort to coming to Alby?"

"Ashamed – what?"

"The mana herbs."

"…What?"

"Don't fucking play dumb with me!" Cyntia angrily retorts, before wincing slightly at re-remembering Sarah.

"I'm not. What are you talking about?"

"The mana herbs were gone, okay? I looked for them tonight, and there were nothing left in my drawer. Since the only reasons they'd be taken are to be eaten or sold…" She glares at Kaven.

"So you think…_I_ took them? To sell them?" The look of incredulity that Kaven is giving her is _almost_ enough to doubt her own conclusion…

But then she remembers there's no other possibility, at all. "Then what else can it be?"

"I-I don't know, lots of things! Thieves stealing it for themselves. Dilys borrowing some because she ran out of potions. Sarah eating a huge numbers at once! Anything!"

"Thieves shouldn't know where the herbs were put," Cyntia counters. "Dilys don't sell mana potions. And Sarah is most certainly not a glutton!"

"Then what do you expect me to say?" Kaven says exasperatedly.

"You can try sorry."

"For what? I didn't freaking take them!"

"Then where did they go? And why were you so late today, if it hadn't been for you accumulating profit off of _what you weren't supposed to?_"

Kaven hesitates, and a flicker of unease passes through his face.

"So you _did_ take them!"

"Do you have any proof?" he asks quietly.

Cyntia narrows her eyes. "No," she admits. "But –"

"Then next time, goddamn think before you start pointing fingers!" And with that, Kaven turns and marches out of the dungeon entrance.

Leaving her frustrated, and a little sad.

"Stupid," she mutters. "Stupid, hardbrained, bone-headed, buffoonish, idiotic, jerko…that guy's exactly like…"

_Like Ruairi. That pitiful man._

Cyntia rubs her head. This is _not_ the time to remember that weird vision…whether it had been literal or symbolic, sporadic or induced, past or future, or even seen or hallucinated. Even if it _did_ startle her some, arriving right after Kaven, she is wise enough to keep her head in the present – exactly like Kaven falling on her, which she probably should have asked what the heck was up with that.

So she is far more concerned that she maybe took things a little too far with Kaven. It _is_ true, after all, that she doesn't have anything conclusive. At the same time, what the heck had he been doing that took so long in Dunbarton, and why won't he tell her what it was?

In the end, she did have to wonder. Is she a girlfriend or a sister to him? Either way – or neither way, if necessary – she just hopes, when it matters, Kaven can serenely confide to a being other than his own growling mind.


	7. A Night to Remember

_**A/N Huh. Lack of motivation is truly demotivating.**_

* * *

><p>He reads the book in silence. There is little else to do in this snowy desolation.<p>

Taking a moment to take off his glasses, he refreshes the spell that reformed the ice on it that acted as lenses. He places it back on his face, dragging away the hair that clung in front of his eyes, and then glares back down at the item, called _Seal Stone Research Almanac: Ciar Dungeon_ and written by an idiot named Jarman.

It is utter gibberish, though not because the phrases, the concepts, or the intent behind the book is too advanced for him: in fact, the role is in reverse, with his level of magic now too far ahead of the general world to even begin considering the book as anything more than a waste of time. He picked it once upon a long, long time ago, because it seemed to hold a promising insight into eternal magic.

Now he just reads it simply because there is nothing else to do.

An understatement as it may be, he has leeched enough of the marrow of nonsense out of the blasted skeleton, a poor excuse of a compilation of information, that if he ever came across someone who recites the exact same theory he can point out all inconsistencies within it in under fifteen seconds. For good measure he can then point out the inconsistencies in his own points in less than twenty seconds, and refine his theory to surpass the errors in another minute.

Except, none of it would help him shrug off his curse. He needed something new, something more current, to refresh his mindset, to bring in any and all new ideas. He is desperate for _something_ that can challenge his mind, if he ever wants to reconfigure its processes to move faster.

A damn pity he regrets losing Kristell and her company now, after all those months, no, _years_ of shrugging her off like she didn't matter. But even that he cannot rectify until he establishes contact with someone else, at which point there's little use regaining contact with her, as he would gain the new source of news and the outlet for ideas that would be the sole reason for wanting her back, and besides which, that may never happen with Father Meven's watchful eye. It's not that he's a bad person, but the father insisted on enlightenment by isolation before considering letting him socialize again. Sometimes he wants to throw religion out into the abyss and curse out Lymilark, Hymerark and Jeamiderark like he had already done with Morrighan, Macha and Neamhain. What little use they had been, in the prime of his life when he had been so hopeful of their existence.

Of course, there's the also problem of finding someone to talk to who won't go and blab to everyone about him if they ever caught wind of his presence. He had been hopeful the girl would come back, but so far all he had seen of her after twenty-four hours are piles and piles of Mana Herbs left at the entrance to this solitary location. He appreciated the gesture, but he longs for some real people to _talk_ to. Mana Herbs keep him alive; people can ideally make him lively.

And then, just after he judges that the positions of the waning Ladeca and Eweca passed their respective positions in the sky that would symbol midnight, someone actually comes through the teleportation block that leads to this gloomy old home.

The red-robed man smiles grimly. Ever since he had first been sighted as a bear, barely a trickle of people came up here at night now. It's one thing to fight a hulking mass of muscle when it's day, but it means something completely different to attack something one cannot see, as he learned himself, once, that day that must be over twenty-five years ago now.

So either the man has prepared in advance for a night showdown with a bear, in which he will find a very nasty surprise – the blond flares up five charges of Lightningbolt immediately – or the mysterious figure knows his secret, in which he will show it exactly why he or she cannot reveal it. Not necessary of course, but it doesn't hurt to be careful.

The man takes his glasses off and puts them in his pocket; detecting the mana moving towards his direction slowly, though he recognizes it, he does not relinquish his hold on his magic, instead adding three more charges that are impossible for nearly everyone else. The only people he knows who can overcome the five-charge limit is his master, himself, Duncan (though even then, six is his maximum) and the notable druids in history that everyone knows about and proclaims as prodigies.

As soon as the figure comes into view, mage of Sidhe Sneachta fires his spell at the tree nearest to it, taking care not to harm the person. The spell impacts the bark and instantly spreads to several other trees, vaporizing each of the diametres in a matter of a millisecond, causing all of them to fall simultaneously.

The result is a tremendous crash that he is sure even the people of Tir Chonaill, hundreds of kilometres to the south, must have heard; it is hard enough to billow out several layers of snow taller than the trees, obscuring vision. The figure reacts badly, darting away immediately, but starting to move around in almost random directions to what is assumed to be obstacles, while the red-robed man can calmly maintain his position with a mana lock on the other person.

Eventually the snow settles again, though by that time the man has observed the uninvited guest trip over several trees, a couple times over his own feet, and once even over the inexcusably dismal book that the blond had discarded in the confusion. This happens last, just before the fog settles down, and so it ends up with the position of the red-robed man standing only two metres in front of the other person, who is revealed to be a man, still awkwardly on all fours, and looking up to him.

"Pleased to meet you," the wizard finally says with a voice cracked with long periods of disuse, though he is pleased to notice the hint of a threat is still detectable in it. "If I remember right, your name was Kaven?"

The boy – man – gets to his feet slowly, shivering even in his thick fur coat. "_Is_ Kaven," the brunet corrects, before taking a deep breath. "I'm guessing you're Tarlach?"

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Seven – <strong>

_A Night to Remember_

* * *

><p>"That's right. Now why don't you sit down over there so we can have a little chat?" Tarlach gestures to the stone deck behind him, and Kaven's eyes follow the direction. Wordlessly, he moves along, and although he seems to be practiced at being subtle, Tarlach, with his glasses focused, can see plainly the fact that Kaven's eyes are mostly still on him. He probably doesn't trust him yet.<p>

Arriving at the flat platform, Tarlach merely thinks for a moment to cause two stone chairs and one stone table suddenly rise from the ground, which apparently startles Kaven because he takes a quick step behind, and winds his arms frantically as he overstretches in the backward direction before righting himself. Tarlach merely goes to the stone table, pops open a small compartment on the top of it and takes out two cracked clay mugs. He scoops some snow into it, and then concentrates once more, and suddenly two blue, nearly invisible flames burst into life on top of each mug. He sets them both down on the table, and two seconds later both fires are put out. Kaven stares at his suspiciously and reaches for the cup, though Tarlach quickly dumps into his cup a tea bag he just took out from the storage in the table as well.

Tarlach does not do the same for his own mug, instead drinking the warm water quickly before setting it down. "So, tell me this: where have you heard about me from? And don't try to fake not knowing about my curse. No one will come up here if they didn't know about the bear."

Kaven only keeps drinking from his mug, his eyes still trained on Tarlach's own emerald ones. Finally he sets his it down, wiping his mouth with the fur part of his coat's wrist. "I didn't know for sure until father Meven told me. Even then, I didn't start suspecting until I experienced the memory you left behind."

"Which one?"

"What do you – oh. You made more?" Tarlach does not bother to answer, so the brunet continues, "The one in Alby dungeon. The one where you met Mari for the first time."

"That one." Tarlach's tone is quite bitter, and he does not try to hide it. "Those were happier days, more peaceful days. I just wish they lasted longer."

Kaven does not seem to have a response to that, and his face dissolves into one situated between pity and disagreement. Tarlach does not care either way; he takes another mouthful of water and waits for the next question that will inevitably come.

"Okay," Kaven says finally. "The goddess. You actually believed in the goddesses?"

"The Babh Cath trio? Of course I believe in them – or at least, I used to. Lymilark, Hymerark and Jeamiderark as well – they are considered the founders of Erinn, and as such I had to learn their religion while I grew up. Ironically, I think these three officially worshipped gods are the ones made up by the imagination of humans. On the other hand, the Cath sisters seem to take the personal supervision of Uladh as their role." A memory – an unpleasant one – looms up into Tarlach's mind, and he spits to the side, making a neat hole on the snow that has fallen there. "Not that they've done much good."

Kaven frowns. "According _The Goddess Who Turned into Stone_ –"

"Yes, yes, Morrighan had reportedly sacrificed herself to protect the humans from the Fomors. Of course, these are simple eyewitness reports, which can be easily deceived if needed."

"But this is the _goddess_ you're talking about."

"And what is that supposed to count for?"

"Well, she would side with the right."

"And you automatically assume humans are always in the right?"

"N-no. But more so than the Fomors."

"Even when there are humans on the side of Fomors?"

Kaven drops his drink. If Tarlach hadn't frozen the liquid inside and lifted it back up onto the table, he would've lost a perfectly good utensil.

The blond sighs as he adjusts his glasses again. "I deal in laws of magic, not history nor mythology, so I can't tell you whether that's more likely to be true or false, not until we can manipulate time and space with magic, which isn't happening yet. However, I can tell you from my own personal experience that Morrighan is a backstabbing bitch. Don't trust her.

"Don't trust her dreams. Don't trust her messages. Don't trust her gifts. Because if you do, you will find out all too soon that they are lies created with the most perverted interpretations of the truth."

Again, Kaven does not seem to have anything to say. Tarlach taps his foot patiently as the man opposite to him glances down, gulps his tea, set his mug down, returns it to his mouth and sips again, and then finally looks back up. "Mores."

"What about him?"

"He's really your master?"

"Yes. If you've been in my memories, you should've experienced some of my thoughts. You should know it's true."

"I know, but…" Kaven makes a face that looks something between a grin and a grimace. "I kinda told someone else, while I was looking for you, I thought you were the student of Mores, to see if that made a reaction. He's my favourite mage, see, so he was the first name I thought up."

"Unlucky," Tarlach murmurs. He hopes they won't actually find the connection. He had worked hard to hide himself from the general world, and he did not need scores of curious people to follow him and the tales of his exploits around. "Can you go and tell him that was a false lead?"

"I…well…all right. I will. It probably won't be a problem." Kaven goes back to sipping his tea again – and perhaps only realizes what he is doing at that moment, as his eyes suddenly darts down, widened slightly at the liquid that is still steaming in his cup. Apparently he decided not to question the mage, as he tentatively sips his cup again, before turning back to the red-robed man. "So that bear that Sarah talked about earlier really was _you_?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I have to have an extra support for my mana system. In the night there is no problem, with the Eweca supplying all the extra mana I need, but during the day one of the few methods at my disposal here is meditating, and that is not nearly enough to replenish my mana levels as fast as my damaged body streams them out. The only other way available to me is to eat mana herbs, though I'm allergic to them as a human. Thus, I must turn into a bear to consume them and prolong my life." Tarlach grimaces and starts again before Kaven has a chance to. "And what a pitiable life it is. I wonder, Kaven, which would you pick? A life prolonged by purely artificial means, simply for the sake of living out the rest of your miserable existence, or an immediate death, so that you could see your friends again?"

"Your friends...Mari and Ruairi...they're both dead?"

"I have seen them –" Tarlach coughs. "I don't want to tell you that yet. Yes, I believe they're dead. I only lived because I was so close to a coma that the people who defeated us left us for dead." Tarlach's voice turns bitter. "Though, I suppose at least a part of my mind encouraged me to play dead. It something I will always be ashamed of."

"...If you want to know, I'd keep living if it's still worth it."

"But _what_ is worth it, Kaven? Friends? Family? Riches? The next generation? Or god forbid, the goddess of revenge? Because I will tell you now, I will rather end my life than to serve out a purpose of Morrighan's."

Kaven closes his mouth. A minute of silence staring at snow passes before he speaks up again. "I guess I don't know what's worth living for, until the time comes when I _do_ have a near-death experience. But if I'm ever to die, I hope I can do it with something that makes everyone remember me. Because, I think to be forgotten completely is true death. If no one can remember your name, it's like you were never born."

"In that case, I must be very close to death."

"Sorry, I didn't –"

"Don't worry about it. It's the truth." Tarlach pulls up the red hood of his robe. "Say hello to little Sarah for me. Tell her she has a pretty name. And please thank her for the piles of Mana Herbs she gave me."

"That was her?" Tarlach tilts his face back up to the other man and he is slightly taken back by the expression on the brunet's face. It's the exact same mixture of disbelief, resignation, lividness and finality that he has seen so many times on Ruairi's face when Mari pulls off a particularly nasty, albeit clever, trick on him.

In fact, in a way Sarah and Kaven reminds him of the relationship between Mari and Ruairi. That makes him chuckle a little. "Yes, I believe she's the one who gave me the extra supplies of mana herbs. Where she took it from, I didn't quite know, though I suspected it wasn't exactly a legitimate mean."

"It was given to us for her. Her own mana system's apparently screwed up somewhere, so Dilys – the town's healer, if you didn't know – prescribed her to them. And she absolutely hates it. At least it's better here than when she ground some up and put them into my bowl of broth."

"Mm."

Apparently Kaven has nothing more to say, as he stays silent for another minute before standing back up again, setting his cup down. As he does so, however, he pauses once more. "Goddess Morrighan…what does she wear?"

"What does she wear?" Tarlach quirks his eyebrows. An odd question. He's not completely sure why the young man asked, but he has a sneaking suspicion it has a little more depth than fashion.

Is he going to try to find the goddess himself?

"Forget going to Tir Na Nog." Tarlach's voice is laced with the hard authority he once had, and he brings it down on the other man, who flinches away almost immediately. "That is where the cursed goddess resides, and that is somewhere humans were never meant to set foot in. Not now, and certainly not in the future."

"I wasn't –"

"_The Land of Eternity, Tir Na Nog_. Have you ever heard of that book?"

"Y-yeah."

"Good. Buy it, read it and then burn it."

"Um – burn it? What for?"

Tarlach leans back on his stone chair, sipping his water again. "Just because it's another very badly written book. Once you burn it perhaps you're gain experience on what horrible books are made of."

"Erm…sure. But I still want to know what the goddess wears."

Tarlach opens his eyes again, shooting Kaven an icy glare that is almost as effective as the Icebolts he is so fond of using. Kaven only takes a step backward this time, his gaze wavering but still meeting Tarlach's eyes. To Tarlach, this insubordination of Kaven's really looks like Kaven is dead set on finding this goddess.

Fine. He'll just have to pull out the dirty tricks. Meaning, a description that is the complete opposite of what he remembers the blasted goddess wearing so long ago, when she had condemned him and his teammates to death. "Morrighan has white wings, and her dress is night black, the same shade as her hair. Is that good enough for you?"

"I guess so." Somewhat puzzled-looking, Kaven turns around again.

And suddenly he feels gloomy again. Without even thinking, Tarlach calls, "Wait."

The other man turns back, his face looking more puzzled.

"Thanks. For talking to me. I haven't done that in a while. Could…" Well, it isn't exactly fair to ask him to return after giving him bad information, is it?

Screw it, Tarlach thinks. He's bored enough already. "If you want to, you can come back here. I need someone to bounce ideas off of."

Perhaps Kaven saw through his aloof tone, for a grin suddenly appears on his face. "That's all? Jeez, you could've just asked," he says, his feet already leaving the stone platform Tarlach calls home.

The blond feels his own smile coming; after years of isolation, prospect of more company is as much of a godsend as he would be able to get.

Of course, he can't let that show to the little brat. He'd get bigheaded. So as Kaven's back becomes more and more obscured by the falling snow, Tarlach only yells out:

"Next time, bring some books, will you?"


	8. The Eternal Idea

Xarah frowns. She frowns deeper. Her lower lip starts quivering as soon as she realizes exactly what is wrong in the scene before her.

As quickly as possible, she scrambles out of the considerably spacious chicken coop, dropping the "borrowed" wooden broom that she sees shivering violently when it hits the ground out of the corners of her eyes. The next thing she knows, it is zooming out of the door faster than Xarah, smacking her slightly on the side of the head at its exit. Xarah keeps running, ignoring the sting from the scratches, and aims straight for her and Cyntia's small hut, though before she get there she crashes into a pair of pants instead.

"Ow!"

Blinking, she glances up to a startled Kaven's face, and her eyes immediately fogs into what she now knows is called tears.

"What – um, Xarah? What's going on?"

She only reaches out and tugs at his shirt desperately, and he complies as he follows her back to the chicken coop.

When they reach the door to the chickens' residence, the various cacophonous calls from inside start gnawing at her head and Xarah can no longer bear to look; she just motions for Kaven to look inside, which he does.

Watching half of his silhouette from a view cut by the doorframe, she stands still, her heart pounding and her hand uncharacteristically starting to sweat. Her eyes starts watering again, and she raises a hand to wipe of her tears. As soon as she finishes, she looks back to Kaven, who has already turned back to face her. A slight shaking of his head confirms her dark suspicions, and she sniffs slightly.

He asks, "Do you, um, want to bury him?"

Xarah nods her head, twice in quick succession.

"But...he's...Xarah, he's just a chicken."

"He was Chicky," Xarah says out loud, and her sadness finally overpowers her, forcing her to sit on the floor tiredly. "He was Chicky. I wish he didn't have to die."

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Eight – <strong>

_The Eternal Idea_

* * *

><p>"Come on, Xarah. We're making some yogurt. Want to help out?"<p>

"No thank you."

"...You get to milk the cow this time, Xarah!"

"It's okay. You can do it this time."

"Well, I guess you can have all of the yogurt today. Maybe we can even mash some strawberries in."

At this, Xarah's face brightens slightly, though it droops down a moment later. "Chicky isn't going to steal the strawberries today, is he?"

"No, he won't. But come on, Xarah. He's in a good place now. I bet he's cawing out to your grandpas to feed him more rice, that naughty little animal."

Xarah smiles again, and this time it stays for a little longer. "Do you think your parents take care of a farm in heaven, too?"

"I won't be surprised if they did," Cyntia laughs. "They weren't ones who took being outdone by _me_ very lightly." Cyntia finally finishes hammering into place an additional level onto the already head-high drawer that rests in their room, setting the blacksmith hammer into the space she has just attached on. She turns her attention down to the sixth-highest cabinet, taking out a set of paintbrushes with cheap paints, a collapsible and much rusted paint stand, and a half-completed picture drawn on a wood board. "There we are. Do you think Kaven's done washing the dishes?"

"Nope! You know how he is about having to do the –" and here Xarah puts up her two fingers in an air quote – "'ladies' work'. What a wussy!"

Cyntia laughs, though suddenly it sounds a little more strained rather than the good-hearted tone Xarah usually hears. She wonders if she said something wrong, but decides it must just be the new vocabulary she has picked up from that adventure as the tall boy with the long sword.

"Do you want me to check up on him?" she asks. "I can push him into the river to get him going."

"Come on, Xarah," Cyntia chimes sweetly. "We're already in autumn now, the sun won't be up as much as it used to be. We'd better not get any clothes we have wet."

"But think of what happens when Kaven has nothing to wear!" When Cyntia does not immediately answer (her jaw is actually slightly open, Xarah notes) the little girl laughs. "He has to wear girls' clothes! Don't you think that would be so funny to see?"

And now Cyntia giggles, though she also lets out, "I'm not letting him wear my stuff. Are you?"

Xarah's face falls. "Oh. I guess my clothes are too small for him anyways."

"That's what I thought. But yeah, that would be something to see. Maybe we can borrow Nora's clothes instead." This brings forth another round of chortles from the other girl, to which Xarah grins once more.

"Eww, no! Nora's clothes are too pretty!"

"Would you rather see Kaven in girl's clothes or not see pretty clothes on Kaven?" Cyntia counters, a wide, pretty smile etched into her face.

Xarah considers this seriously for a moment, and then says, "I'd rather not see the pretty clothes on Kaven."

"But that was your idea!" Cyntia snickers once more, before jolting up slightly and saying, "Right, can you check up on Kaven? And no pushing into the river, please."

"Oh, all right," Xarah whines and darts quickly out of the room before Cyntia remembers she forgot to add the cherry on top.

Technically it should only take barely fifteen seconds for Xarah to dart the five metres she needed to view Kaven at _his_ spot on the river, ascertain his job is progressing smoothly and report back to Cyntia. When she sees Kaven on the _other_ side of the Adelia stream, however, already walking into the gap in the forest that signalled the start of Dugald Aisle, this train of thought derails immediately.

Where is he going? It looks like he's trying to sneak off.

Perhaps it is a testament of her naivety when the immediate thought that enters her mind at the unexpected sight is not to ask Cyntia what is going on, but instead to sneakily follow him to wherever he is going, so that when she surprises him he'd be so proud to see how good she is at stalking!

Abruptly forgetting that someone is still expecting a report from her, she shivers in anticipation and excitedly hops into motion, moving her shorter legs quickly through a path in the wheat and barley fields, across the bridge and straight into the deciduous forest that swallows her whole.

* * *

><p>A long, five-hour trek later, Xarah, who still hasn't gotten rid of her overexitement from being able to outsmart Kaven, watches from behind the corner of the stone building as the brunet converses with a pretty, long-haired girl with glasses and a feminine uniform. Kaven is speaking calmly, while the girl seems flustered. As Xarah watches, she suddenly recognizes the girl as Aeira, the book-seller of Dunbarton, who had generously given her all those free books the last time she had come to the considerably large city.<p>

They seem to be speaking quickly about something Xarah cannot hear, try as she might. Sometimes, she hears snatches of words, like "out", "Tir", "publisher", "soon", among others, but none of it manages to make any sense to her. When the conversation seems to start to close, she grows slightly more annoyed at the fact that this event is barricading her potential boast to Kaven about how perfectly she managed to stalk him.

But if she tried to find out what they are talking about, she'd have to get closer and maybe even ask them, and if that happened she'd probably get in trouble for stalking him in the first place...

Ah, screw it. She's too curious.

She makes to jump out into their group, except when she takes a single step out of her cover Aeira notices her and waves excitedly; as soon as that occurs, Kaven spins around, his eyes widened ever so slightly and his mouth dropping slightly in almost a desperate way, as if he can swallow the scene before him and pretend it doesn't exist. He hurriedly finishes his conversation with Aeira with quiet words that Xarah cannot hear as she runs to them, before she is suddenly yanked by her arm by a somewhat stern-looking Kaven to the direction opposite of where she had been running to.

"Aeira! What were you talking abouuuuut!" she manages to yell to the somewhat disappointed-looking girl, just before Kaven makes a right turn and the alley in which the girl sets up shop is hidden from her view completely.

"Kaven –" she starts to whine, but the man cuts her off.

"Did you follow me all the way here?" He sounded grouchy. As in, the _Don't-mess-with-me_ kind of grouchy. Xarah only gulped and nodded, to which he asked, "Did you tell Cyntia?"

Xarah nearly nodded her head again, but then thought about it and shook her head instead.

"So she has _no idea where you are_?"

"Well...no."

Kaven smacks his head like there is a fly resting there. "She's going to kill me six times over, isn't she?"

"Um...she probably _is_ going to be mad at you. Did you finish the dishes, by the way?"

"Oh, so that's why you saw me," Kaven grumbles. "I placed them right beside your door. I guess you must've missed it."

"Oh." Xarah laughs slightly nervously. "Well, I only wanted to stalk you to see if you can notice me."

"I didn't. I would congratulate you, but I'm too busy mentally preparing my speech to you about your irresponsibility...as well as deciding what shape I like my gravestone best."

"Cyntia won't be _that_ mad...I think. She'll probably forgive you...I hope."

"You're more trouble than you're worth, you know that? Maybe I should just leave you behind."

"Aww, Kaven," Xarah whines, suddenly clinging to the bottom of his long-sleeved shirt. "That would be so mean!"

With a bit of surprise, Xarah notices that they are already heading on a tree-bordered trail due north, back into Dugald forest that Xarah herself had emerged from thirty minutes ago. Before Kaven can comment again, she interrupts, "We're already heading back? But what were you looking for?"

"Xarah, what I'm looking for kinda isn't your business."

"But you wouldn't come all the way down to Dunbarton for nothing!" Something clicks in Xarah's head. "Oh, you're arranging an owl to mail it to you, then? That would explain why you don't have to wait in Dunbarton. Isn't that wasting money though, spending it on owl deliveries?"

"Wha – no! Aeira said she'd send it free –" Kaven coughs. "Not your business."

"Come on, Kaven! What are you getting? Flowers? A cool-looking weapon? New clothes? Some chocolates?"

This time, Kaven actually stops and when she turns, she finds him staring at her somewhat disbelievingly. She is about to ask what he is doing, except he says, "Aeira runs a _book_store" like it should be blatantly obvious.

Which, it actually is. Xarah flushes. "Oh," she mutters. "Yeah. Books. Okay."

Wordlessly, he takes her hand and starts moving forward again. When she risks a peek through her auburn bangs, she is startled to find that Kaven is smirking. From what, she cannot tell, but suddenly her mood lifts again and she steps forward with him.

Though this actually turned out to be a bad idea, since in the next moment a stick sprouts from the ground, piercing through her leather shoes and quite effectively rendering her foot immobile.

* * *

><p>It takes half a second for her to realize that the stick must actually have been an arrow, and another half a second to realize it probably came from above, not below. Another second later she realizes she is unhurt; she is lucky enough that the arrow hit an area between her big toe and the next toe. She actually has the time to wiggle her toes, just to make sure they doesn't hurt.<p>

On the third second, she finally realizes they are under attack.

Xarah jerks her head back up, taking in the scene before her. Slightly to her left, Kaven has already unsheathed his gathering knife and is reaching for a thin wooden stick that lies just beside his foot on the dirt path they have followed out of the stony city, except another arrow _thunk_s into place too close to his hand for Xarah's comfort.

Straight ahead is a black-robed person whose odd cat-themed half-mask covered his lower face, therefore limiting Xarah from being able to draw a conclusion as to whether he is a boy or a girl. What she knows for sure, however, is that the bow that the person is holding and the arrow that he (or she) has already notched is not of the toy variety.

Desperately, the girl wrenches her foot away from the wooden skewer and manages to rip her shoe off her foot. She dives to and hides behind the nearest tree, hoping that this assailant's aim isn't good enough to hit any part of her that is sticking out of the skinny cover.

Reorienting on Kaven, she finds he has already moved quickly, taking shelter on the trees lining the other edge of the path. Xarah then becomes confused when he starts moving _towards_ the attacker, rather than away. Did he want to catch this guy?

Well, Xarah doesn't know for sure what he's trying to do, but capturing the man suddenly seems like a good idea. If nothing else, accomplishing that should make Kaven proud for sure!

Hastily she darts forward to another tree, then to another, making her trip between them as short as possible to avoid an unlucky hit. She joins in Kaven with his pressing towards the bowman, darting forward when he ducks and attracting attention so that he can run forward. Xarah remembers this exact same move Kaven and Cyntia has done, where two or more people would press on from different sides, dividing the prey's attention, before one got close enough to go in for the kill. That was the first time they taught her the rudiments of hunting. The wolf meat tasted extra good that night.

The black-clad man apparently notices their manoeuvre, however, as he starts quickly backtracking, sending one shot at a time to both Kaven and Xarah in turn, though it doesn't stop them from closing in the distance. Xarah quickly snatches a bigger wooden stick than the one Kaven had found off the ground, hefting it on her shoulder that suddenly looks tinier in comparison.

After a few more steps the man apparently decides to hold his ground and Xarah is forced to duck once more as he lets loose an arrow in her direction. He grabs another one and manages a quick shot at Kaven, who is sneaking closer and is forced to take cover as well; in that instant Xarah sees that his supply of arrows is already gone.

As soon as his hand starts reaching back again, she charges.

Behind her, she hears a shouted "Hey!" that manages to distract the attacker nicely as she points her stick forward and charges, intent on running him through the rather blunt stick.

And then the man turns back and their eyes connect.

She is surprised at the utterly devoid look to them, almost tripping up her dash. The eyes are like bottomless pits, an ugly, starless sky that stretches wide and expands deeply. It's not the eyes of someone who is warm. Not the eyes of someone who is sympathetic. Not the eyes of someone who..._lives_.

But surely, someone who had obviously trained with weapons as much as he did has _some_ kind of memory to remember?

Some kind of hope to carry out?

Some kind of...freedom, to treasure?

The next thing she knows, the man raises a hand, and a ball of fire poofs into life.

Which darts forward instantly and hammers her straight on her stomach.

Stars pop into her eyes, and her breath is snatched away from her; neither sensation is pleasant, the stars being vomit-yellow and her breath stolen with little more grace than Dilys with her knife and her tweezer. Somehow, when her mind comes back to reality she finds herself on her knees, gasping, and clutching her stomach, feeling like she is about to faint any second. The wooden stick she had picked up lies on the ground right underneath her view. When she looks up, she only finds the man, a short sword in his hand now, coldly looming over her.

The sword plunges to her head.

Surprisingly, she's not scared. In fact, the she is already disregarding this and forcing herself to think of her next move. After all, she didn't come here alone. Her teammate should be able to cover for her.

The sword moves down.

She grins slightly.

The sword drops faster.

Kaven should intercept it by now.

The sword will stab her eye in half a second.

Xarah doesn't even blink.

A hand comes out of nowhere and grabs inside the swing, while the rest of Kaven's body follows several milliseconds later as he follows up with a rough uppercut straight to what Xarah guesses is the diaphragm. The man coughs out, his body shape halfway between upright and being in the fetal position, allowing Kaven a very nice window at the back of the man's head that he eagerly chops into.

Xarah takes that moment to duck under the cover of Kaven's frame, and then roundhouse kick at the man's knee, exactly the way she had seen Cyntia do so to a bandit. Her shin connects with the front of the attacker's knee with a satisfying _crunch_.

Pain explodes into her mind. Again.

She screams. She doesn't even try to restrain herself this time. Her leg is blazing with pain, consuming the skin, the muscle, the bone, and she desperately hugs it, trying to quench it out. The injury flares again violently, and then her shoulder starts searing too, but then both sensations starts to die down.

By the time it dies down, leaving her gritting her teeth once more, she becomes aware of a digging sensation into her stomach. Actually, it isn't so much digging as it is a rhythmic jostling, and when she opens her eyes she realizes she is about two metres off the ground, with her centre of gravity higher than her head.

Then she realizes she is being carried on someone's shoulder. An instant later, by the colour of his shirt, she realizes it is Kaven who had collected her. She taps his back twice, but Kaven snaps, "Not now," and Xarah keeps quiet.

She then remembers why they are running in the first place, and raises her head, looking at the direction they are moving away from. Nothing. She doesn't see anything but the dirt path Kaven's feet pounds away at.

Xarah doesn't point this out, however, and dutifully keeps a lookout until Kaven finally dives for one of the huge boulders that litter Dugald Aisle, and she feels Kaven's arm pulling her off at the same time.

"Who was –" she begins, except that's when she sees the bloodied owl cradled in Kaven's other arm. "Oh!"

"Aeira's owl," the man grumbles. "The only time she actually sends something quickly, and _this_ happens." He sighes. "You did a good job, little guy."

The owl gives a small but triumphant hoot. Its left wing seems badly damaged, with a clear, long, bloody slice from the side of its neck all the way down to the tip of its wings on the other side. Xarah feels like she is about to vomit again, but she clenches her teeth and holds out her arms, to which Kaven complies and hands the owl to her.

Xarah hugs the owl gently but firmly, not dissimilarly to how she used to hold Chicky. She gently eases out the owl's injured wing, and holds it out to Kaven, who reaches into his pouch and grabs out a slightly dirty roll of bandages.

"Dammit," she hears him mutter, "can't believe another fifty gold went down the drain…" More loudly, he says, "This might hurt a bit. I'm only used to wrapping up human limbs."

The owl only gives another hoot, and Kaven moves in to wrap the outstretched wing with little less neatness than he usually exhibits. Xarah keeps her eye on both the hitches and coils Kaven makes, and on the path they have just left. A thought crosses her mind as the man finishes treating the owl that now has stilled with its eyes closed.

"Doesn't this remind you of the time we went after that Wisp?"

"Dammit Xarah," Kaven growls lowly, "that was the time _you_ went after the Wisp. I still got burns from it too, so don't you think I forgave you for that."

Despite herself, Xarah could not help a bright grin that intrudes on her face. "Look at us now, though. If Cyntia hadn't taught me what to do after a retreat, then I wouldn't know to keep my ears peeled and eyes open."

"No, you wouldn't," Kaven concedes, "and you'd also know better than to jump into a fight with someone who's way stronger than you."

"But –"

"_And_ you would know better than to kick someone on their goddamned knee cap. Didn't we teach you to hit the side or the back of a joint? And is your foot fine?"

Xarah's eyes quickly dart down to her shin. It becomes very obvious that it is bruised, though when she touches the bluish tinge of skin, it doesn't sting any more than pecks on the arm Chicky loves to give her. "I think it's fine."

"Hmm." With that, he reaches down to the ground and picks up something she doesn't recognize immediately. It is only when he spreads it and rustles through the sheets that she becomes aware that it is a book.

Or at least, it _was_ a book. Technically it still is – only, half of it, the cover and the first few pages it seems, is missing. As Xarah watches in surprise Kaven skims through the rest of the pages, his eyes not staying on a newly turned passage for more than three seconds. By the time Xarah thinks up of a question, Kaven has already reached the cover that is intact and has stored it away in his ever-present hip pouch.

"Um, what is that?"

"Not much of your business, Xarah," he grumbles again. "It's not Cat-face's business either, but it looks like this is what he was after. Lucky he didn't seem to have grabbed the important pages."

"Important?"

"Nevermind. We should get back. I told Cyntia I was going to work some part time jobs today, but as for you…" Kaven's face sours again.

Xarah only frowns. It isn't like him to keep information from her. Usually he is eager to share whatever facts he gained from reading with her, as if to show off. So this change of behaviour is an unpleasant surprise indeed. "Kaven, I want to know what that was all about. Is he one of those mean men? If he is, then you shouldn't be keeping this from Cyntia."

"I'm not keeping anything from her."

"But _is_ he one of those mean men?"

"…No. He was way stronger." Kaven rubs his off-hand, and it is only now that Xarah notices it is slightly more red than usual. "He was holding back – and he knew if I tried to attack him weaponless I'd be the one hurting. I think he had plate armour underneath that black cloak. And when I chopped down into him – I think his mana was protecting him. I didn't know it could do that. Felt like hitting a marshmallow with lots of splinters packed inside."

"Then what does he want?" Xarah asks insistently. "If he doesn't want money –"

"He wanted to the book. I already said that, and wasn't that obvious enough from when he grabbed it?"

"But I didn't see –" And then Xarah remembers the fact that she was nearly knocked unconscious. "Oh. But then what's the book about?"

"I told you. Nothing important."

"It has to be. Someone attacked us, didn't they? What was in the book?" Kaven only studies her and Xarah feels a rare prick of anger starting to come out of her stomach. "What was that book about?" When Kaven still does not answer, she remarks, "I'm not a little kid, Kaven. Please tell me what it the book was about!"

Kaven blinks slowly. It is a normal enough gesture. But suddenly, when his eyes start to reopen, an elephant's worth of fear crashes into her, nearly knocking her off her feet by the sensation alone. The trepidation abruptly swallows her brain, sending wormy arms into every nook and cranny of her mind. Her stomach starts aching uncomfortably, like it is lowering itself, trying to escape the emotion that plagues her mind. And then her fingers start trembling.

The small, logical part of her brain that could still function isn't sure where this feeling comes from, but as predictably as the day turn to night and the young grow old, she knows for sure that whatever the answer is, it will lead her to total ruin.

_But you were only talking about a book…_

She quashes this thought viciously. And just when Kaven refocuses his eyes on her, she lets out a shaky sentence.

"Nevermind. I don't want to know."


End file.
